


Stitches

by ShastaFirecracker



Series: Scars verse [2]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Blood and Injury, Bunker Fluff, Case Fic, Castiel in the Bunker, Domestic Fluff, Human Castiel, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Season 9 AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-07
Updated: 2015-05-07
Packaged: 2018-03-29 10:22:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 29,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3892816
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShastaFirecracker/pseuds/ShastaFirecracker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cas copes with being injured as a human, and while he's still recovering the boys take on a case in New Mexico that isn't as cut-and-dried as it seems. Same verse/sequel to Sand and Salt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The dynamics of the Sand and Salt verse kept fermenting in the back of my mind until it turned into another fic. As stated in S&S, this verse diverges from canon in two places: Sam is not possessed by Gadreel (either releasing the Trial energy didn't hurt him or he was healed some other way) and after Cas makes it to the bunker in 9x03, he stays. Mild trigger warnings in end notes.

_“Ah!_ Dean!”

“Hold still.”

Sam nearly walks facefirst into the library doorframe, freezes and quickly squeezes his eyes shut. He hasn't spotted them but he knows he won't want to.

“Fuck,” Cas spits, voice strained.

“I got you, babe.”

Sam hollers “You guys are disgusting!” before turning to retreat.

“Sam!” Dean calls. “Come here!”

Cas makes a noise that's half-sob, half-moan.

Sam freezes again. He can't have heard that right. Why the hell would Dean want him to go over there?

_“Sam, get your ass in here!”_

Dean's tone is deadly urgent. Sam cracks his eyes open, turns to look into the library again. This time he makes out their figures on the far side of the long room, at the bottom of the stairs down from the front door. Cas is sprawled out on the steps and Dean is kneeling in front of him.

Sam registers _red,_ and his eyes go wide.

He runs the length of the library, pulling off his overshirt as he goes. Closer, he can see more detail: Cas, trying to double at the waist in pain, burying his face in the crook of his elbow, one leg crumpled under him and the other stretched out long, mangled and bloody. Dean, pale-faced, plaid flannel button-down already soaked through where he's holding it tight around Cas' upper thigh.

Sam drops to his knees in a slide, passing over his shirt, which Dean swaps for the soaked one in a swift, practiced move. “Femoral?” Sam asks.

“He'd have bled out by now,” Dean grunts, wadding the shirt tighter and pressing down hard. Cas screams, muffled by his arm. “Messy. Serrated teeth.”

Sam hisses. “Let me see for a sec.”

Dean lifts the shirt and Cas makes a rough keening noise. Cas' jeans are in tatters around the wound, but with one wide clean rip where Dean must have jerked them open to staunch the bleeding. The bite is more of a grab-n-gnaw than a clean puncture. Not a were-anything or vamp, which is good news, but Sam can't place it immediately, which isn't so good. He nods and Dean clamps the bleeder tightly again. “Got you,” he says, face pinched into get-it-fixed, panic-later mode. “I got you, Sam's gonna get the stuff, we'll fix this, you're fine, you'll be fine.”

“On it,” Sam says, already jumping up and running back.

He slides on the tile of the hall floor, rounding a corner into the bathroom where they keep their first aid supplies. They have a regular free clinic in here now – used to be, they'd only have what they could keep with them in the car, but since they have a place to store and organize it all they've picked up a lot more supplies than they've ever had before. Sam snatches up one of the big, clean towels, holds the ends and starts tossing things into the makeshift sling: hydrogen peroxide, boxes of gauze, suture kits, a bottle of liquid stitches, the kinds of blessed and/or purifying herbs and salves you wouldn't find in a hospital but that might work to leech out certain poisons or curses. He grabs up another stack of towels, shoves it under his arm, hooks his free fingers into the handle of one of the gallon bottles of distilled (and also holy) water lined up under the sink, and runs back out again. He bellows “Kevin!” as he goes, because they might need another set of hands.

He dumps the pile of first aid stuff on the long study table nearest the door and keeps dashing over to where Dean is just lifting the second blood-soaked shirt to check on the wound beneath.

“It's slowing down,” he says, refolding the shirt for a clean side and applying it again. “Bleeding's slowing, Cas, you listenin' to me?”

Cas makes a short, angry noise into his arm. Dean takes one hand off the shirt to give his hair a short, sharp pull, dragging his face out of his elbow. _“You listenin' to me?”_ Dean demands.

Cas hisses between his teeth, but he nods curtly.

“Sam,” Dean snaps.

Sam doesn't bother saying anything. He and Dean have been handling hunting injuries for each other and themselves for the better part of their entire lives. This bite wound is nasty, but it isn't the worst thing Sam's ever seen. He settles into a state of instant concentration, just like Dean: fix this now, question it later.

“Table,” Sam says. “Pull.” Dean nods, lets go of the wound padding with one hand to help Sam grab Cas' feet and haul him down off the bottom few steps. Cas grinds his teeth and throws his head back, but doesn't scream again. Sam moves to his side, shoves his hands under Cas' back and ass. Being handsy is not a concern when there's injury to be dealt with.

Sam lifts while Dean holds onto the wound, steadying Cas' bad leg and keeping the pressure up. Cas struggles to assist in an awkward, lurching hobble, throwing his arms around Sam's neck and clinging tight to stay upright, making sharp, high noises on every exhale. They make it to the table and Sam shoves the few books on it onto the floor with an avalanche of thunks. He lays Cas out, grabs one of the towels off of the pile and shoves it under his head. Dean's already pulled the bloody shirt out of the way and is working on Cas' belt and fly, yanking down the zipper, wrestling off Cas' shoes. The jeans are thrown to the side with the bloody shirt in seconds.

“Gimme,” Dean says, holding out his hand. Sam picks up the gallon of water but shakes his head at Dean.

“Hold him,” Sam says. “I'll do it.”

Dean grunts but does as he's told, grabbing Cas' knees.

“What are you -” Cas gasps, but Sam cuts him off with the first steady stream of water directly onto the wound.

Cas shrieks. After the first couple of raptor-sharp cries, he seems to lose his voice; he makes noises, but they're raspy moans, volume going in and out like a badly tuned radio. He's panting hard, belly shivering with the movement.

Sam keeps the stream even, clearing blood and rinsing out debris. When the bottle's half-empty he tips it back up, screws on the cap. “Better. Cas, you with us?”

Cas sobs slightly, but nods.

Dean jerks his head to the side. “Get the Jack. Cabinet over there.”

Sam fetches the Jack Daniels but doesn't open it yet. The wound is clean enough to see now. The bleeding is sluggish, the color a dull red. Not arterial. Sam breathes out a gust of relief.

“Dean, wash up?”

Dean glances at Sam, looks torn, then squeezes his eyes shut and shakes his head. He holds out one hand. It's shaking. “Got hit too,” he says. “Came outta nowhere. I can't.”

Sam nods. “I can do it.” Dean's stitches are smaller and neater but he can't play surgeon with the D.T.s like this. Sam puts down the bottle of Jack, picks up the hydrogen peroxide instead, splashes a generous amount over his hands and wrists. Some splatters over the wound. Cas whoofs as if he's been punched. The energy for expressing pain seems to have bled out of him along with his actual blood.

Sam frowns. “How much did he lose?”

“Dunno, a lot,” Dean says. They swap places, Sam moving down so he's by Cas' leg, leaving Dean plenty of room by his head. Dean grabs the bottle of whiskey and cracks it open, works his hand under the back of Cas' head, raising it slightly. “Cas,” he says, rough but quiet. “Incoming. Drink.” Cas coughs around the neck of the bottle, some whiskey spilling down his chin, but he swallows most of it. Dean gives him a breath, then another shot. “Best anesthetic we got,” he says. “Sorry.”

Cas releases a harsh breath through pursed lips. “Not your fault.”

Dean presses his mouth to Cas' forehead. “Gonna hurt.”

“Already hurts. Can I have another drink?”

Dean laughs humorlessly, lets Cas take another swig.

Sam eyes the level in the bottle go down while he grabs a suture kit and tears open the packaging. “Enough,” he says. “Your blood volume is low, that's plenty.”

Cas sighs, squeezing his eyes shut. Dean lays his head gently back down on the towel. Sam focuses on threading the needle while Dean presses his face close to Cas'. They don't say anything but even if they did Sam would pretend not to hear it.

When Dean raises his head, Sam is too preoccupied with the needle to react to the tear tracks through the blood and dirt smudges on his face. Dean doesn't seem to notice them, either. He breathes out hard, staring at Sam, slightly unfocused. At last, once Sam has the thread tied, Dean demands, “Seriously, you thought those were sex noises?”

Sam snorts, dragging a chair over so he can perch on the arm to get a good eye-level view of Cas' thigh. He starts poking around for a likely place to begin. The wound is such a mess of torn flesh, there isn't a clear line to patch up. “Compared to what I have _unwillingly_ overheard in the last couple months,” Sam says, gently pulling back folds of flesh, making Cas hiss. “Kinda, yeah.”

“Goddammit,” Dean says. “Those were _agony noises.”_

“Yeah,” Sam mutters, looking at something odd and pearly. “I got that. Hand me the tweezers?”

“What?” But Dean grabs them, hands them over. Sam probes gently, grasps, and draws out a short, fine, needlelike object.

“This looks like...” Sam says, staring at it and angling it around, “a fish... bone?”

“Fucking -” Dean scrubs his bloody hands into his hair, leaving red smears across his forehead. “Fucking _fairies,_ Sam! I hate motherfucking fairies!”

“Wait, a fairy did this?” Sam asks, aghast.

Cas answers, haltingly, gasping for breath. “A... naiad. Eleionomae. I crossed into its sacred stillness, it only reacted in defense.”

“Not like Fishface had a white picket fence and a 'keep off the grass' sign!” Dean snaps. “How's anyone supposed to know where her sacred bullshit is? Screw this, I'm getting the arsenal out and burning that bitch to the -”

“Dean, don't,” Cas says pleadingly. “Please leave her alone.”

“She _bit_ you!”

“I stepped on her,” Cas says. “It's a natural reaction.”

Meanwhile, Sam's been pulling more slender, needlelike bones out of the wound. “Are these her _teeth?”_

“A deterrent,” Cas gasps, “a natural defense, much like a porcupine.”

“Poisoned?” Sam looks up, worried.

Cas gives a small, sharp head shake. “I've never heard of eleionomae with poison quills. They rely on illusion magic to hide. They only wish not to be disturbed. She'll be in a great deal of pain until she regrows her teeth.”

“Wow,” Sam mutters. “That sucks.”

“Why don't I go put her out of her misery, then, huh?” Dean snaps. He takes a drag on the bottle of Jack, too.

“Dean,” Sam says, because his brother's post-traumatic pissiness is trying his patience, “go get Kevin, would you? I need another pair of hands to hold a light. Steady hands.” He glares.

Dean huffs, but clunks the now half-empty bottle of whiskey down on the table and stomps out of the library.

“Sam,” Cas says through gritted teeth. “Don't let him -”

“It's fine, Cas,” Sam says, although to be honest he doesn't feel very charitable towards the offending naiad either. “I doubt we'd ever find her anyway, if they can hide that well. I knew they were real but I've never heard of anyone hunting one.”

“They aren't a threat,” Cas says plaintively. “Not to humans. They live in isolation, eat frogs and insects.”

“We won't hurt her,” Sam sighs. “How the hell did you literally stumble onto a naiad, anyway?”

While Sam pulls teeth and cleans grit and staunches bloodflow and disinfects and puts in stitches, Cas haltingly explains: he likes to go for walks. It's seeing the world, the earth, his father's creation, from what, for him, is an ant's point of view. He's fascinated, he's in awe, he's always so filled with joy when he's outside amid the trees and birds and the singing wind. That's how he puts it, anyway.

Sometimes Dean goes on walks with him, out of some sense of commitment or commiseration or duty, or all of the above. Sam knows how Dean is when he's full of sap. Going on long walks in the woods is more or less Dean's idea of hell, but doing just about anything to please the people he loves is right down in his bone marrow. So of course he goes for walks with Cas.

Cas found a marshy area weeks back, out past the fields to the north of the bunker. He often goes for his runs along the fence that skirts a few acres of long-abandoned, fallow field, and that's how he'd found the marsh, by going out far enough. It's a lush place, he says, almost like jungle, with trees and plants that don't seem to belong to the area. He frequently runs there, then spends a few hours meditating in the shade of a willow at the edge of the wetland. The willow is on a dry little hillock and Cas says the view over the flowering lilypads is profoundly serene.

He'd taken Dean to see it today. Dean, balking at the idea of walking several miles to look at a swamp, had talked Cas into a compromise: drive to the marsh, but spend as much time there as Cas wanted. Dean would never offroad the Impala like that, of course, but the bunker's garage has its share of quad bikes and Jeeps to choose from.

And it's a good thing they had a vehicle or Cas might be dead right now. As Cas tells the story, he tries to paint it as no one's fault – they'd decided to take a closer look into the marsh, Cas had set his foot the wrong way and happened to step on the naiad where she slept under the still waters. But Sam can read between those lines. He's envisioning Dean, bored with the little hillock and the willow and the view, going down into the ( _obviously_ supernaturally influenced) marsh to explore, kicking at tussocks of grass, swatting at bugs, stepping on plants, complaining about wet feet. And Cas following, to make sure he was safe, and slipping into the water, and Dean probably enraging the naiad further by attacking her, and...

It's not that Sam thinks his brother's a bad person, it's just that – well – he knows Dean. And in any situation where a peaceful being lashes out, Sam can't help but think that it's because Dean made that being mad. It's a skill he has. Or a curse. Both.

“He did pick a flower,” Cas says mournfully. “Perhaps that was what did it.”

Sam sighs.

Eventually Kevin joins them, gags at the sight of blood, but agrees to hold a light up so that Sam can see what he's doing. Dean's nowhere to be seen. As Sam puts in careful stitches, the wound is taking a more regular shape, beginning to look like whole flesh again.

“It'll probably heal lumpy and...” Sam sighs. “It's just... gonna take a while. And you're gonna have a hell of a scar. I'm sorry, I'm not a doctor.”

“It's all right,” Cas says with a grimace. “I feel much better. Everything's... rocking. And fuzzy.”

“Yeah, that's a fifth of whiskey talking,” Sam mutters. “And a hangover on top of massive blood loss is gonna be a real thrill ride, let me tell you. Hey, um. Do you have any idea what your blood type is?” 

But Cas shakes his head. Sam sighs. Neither he nor Dean is a universal donor, so they can't risk a transfusion.

“What about his vessel?” Kevin asks, switching the flashlight from one hand to the other. “He had a life, he had medical records, right?”

Sam glances up, but Cas turns his face away and says nothing.

“Good idea,” Sam says. “Could you hack that? Or call Charlie and see if she'll check?”

Kevin rolls his eyes. “Please. I'm Kevin -”

“-frickin' Solo,” says Sam, “yeah, I remember.”

Kevin makes a face at him.

Cleaning and closing the wound takes nearly an hour. Sam's sweating by the time he's done, a combination of intense focus and the hot beam of the flashlight in his face. He scrubs his forehead onto his shoulder and says to Kevin, “Cut the lights and get the gauze, please?”

He disinfects the whole area again, using one spare towel to spread peroxide and another to wipe off blood, and Kevin helps him hold down the thick pad of gauze while Sam wraps Cas' leg with a roll of bandage. Cas' breathing is shallow and erratic, but besides the involuntary moans that escape him whenever Sam moves his leg, he seems incapable of moving or reacting to anything on his own.

“'M so tired,” he slurs as Sam lifts his knee one last time to pass the roll under and around his leg. “Ev'th'ngs so loud.”

“Shock,” Sam says, “blood loss, drunk, take your pick. You need the sleep.”

Cas tries to say something again, eyelids dragging up and down in a painfully slow blink. He can't quite gather the volume to make himself heard, but Sam catches a long 'e' sound.

“Where's Dean?” Sam hazards. Cas nods faintly. “Dunno. He vanished. Self-flagellating, probably.”

Cas frowns and makes a move as if to try to push himself up.

“Whoa, whoa, nope.” Sam holds him on the table. “I mean, you need to get to a bed, but you're not doing it. Stay put, I'll find him.” He glances at Kevin.

Kevin rolls his eyes. “I'll make sure he doesn't fall on his face.”

Sam heads out of the library, beelining for Dean's room. Halfway there, though, he hears a clang in the kitchen. Slowing, he backs up a few steps to go around the corner and check it out.

Sure enough, a still-bloodied Dean is choosing this opportune moment to throw another pan at a wall. The clang of it is much louder inside the kitchen, where it can reverberate off the walls and all the metal surfaces. Sam winces and yells Dean's name before Dean can pick up another projectile.

Dean spins around. “What?”

Sam jerks his head towards the library. “You ditched him, now he's worried. Drunk and worried.”

Dean puts his face in his hands, runs the heels hard over his eyes and back onto his temples. He turns, kicks a counter. “Damn it! It was my fault, Sam, and now he's -”

 _“Fine,”_ Sam says. “He will be fine. Calm down. Stop breaking the bunker and come do something useful. Whisper sweet nothings in his ear or whatever the hell you two do.”

Dean flips him off, but follows him out of the kitchen.

“Where the hell did you go, anyway?” Sam asks.

Dean shakes his head. “Looked up how to kill naiads. Went and got the stuff to kill naiads. Got halfway outside before I realized I couldn't kill the goddamn naiad.” He turns and gives the wall a good, pointless kick as they head back into the library.

“Because -”

“Because he said not to, okay? Fucker would try to make friends with a tiger that was in the middle of eating him.” Dean's tone devolves into an angry, tense, exhausted mutter. “Him and his goddamn bees. Wants to build an apiary. Fucking marry the things that try to kill you if you love 'em so much.”

“Dude,” says Sam, with only the tiniest modicum of sympathy, “you are twelve.”

Dean grumps all the way to the table where Cas is laid out. As soon as he reaches Cas' side, though, his pretense of anger finally falls away. The panic has finally had a chance to leech out of him, and he's down to running on the fumes of exhaustion and worry. Kevin's at a different, non-blood-covered table, typing away on a laptop; he glances up but doesn't greet them.

Cas' eyes are closed. Dean reaches his side, takes one hand and holds it while patting Cas' face with the other. “Hey,” Dean says. “Wake up, sleeping beauty, it's time to go to bed.”

Cas stirs, drags his eyes open with a roll. He turns his head over stiffly to look at Dean. “'Lo,” he croaks. “Think I need s'more anssick. Anash, anshick, stuff. Drink.”

“No,” Dean says patiently, “You need sleep and painkillers.”

“'Swat I said.”

“Come on, booze-breath.” Dean pulls him up by the arm, gets a grip around his upper back. Sam helps get him into a sitting position. “Waste of a good half a bottle of Jack.”

Cas' eyes are rolling even more now. “We're on a boat,” he states matter-of-factly.

Sam has to laugh. “Nope, that's just you. Up you go.”

He and Dean manage to slide Cas around, holding his bad leg mostly stable while edging him off the table until the toes of his good foot touch the floor. “Gotta put the bad one down to hold you up,” Dean grunts. “Stay up. Lean on me. Okay, one, two -” He lowers Cas' leg all the way down and lets go.

The instant Cas puts the tiniest fraction of weight on it, he makes a noise like a steaming kettle and leans so hard on Dean he almost knocks Dean over. “Hurts,” he grates into Dean's neck.

“I know, I know, come on.” Dean hups him over so Sam can share the weight better. Between them they start to shuffle away from the table. “Stop being such a baby. One little major muscle group shredded up and you act like it's the end of the world.”

“Fuckyou,” Cas bites out in one breath, but he regains enough faculties to try to help in his own movement.

It feels like forever but it takes less than ten minutes to get Cas down the hall and into his claimed bedroom. He and Dean have kept their own rooms – Sam thinks they sleep together most of the time, but switch rooms often. He suspects it has something to do with avoiding ever doing their own laundry. He's stopped thinking about why he ends up washing so many loads of sheets.

Cas' bed is obviously the last one they'd occupied, because the covers are all over the place, sheets bunched and pillows askew. Sam would be more mortified if he didn't already know that that's just how Dean sleeps, and apparently Cas isn't any better. Sam makes sure Dean has a good hold on Cas and slips away from them both to jerk the sheets a little straighter, throw the pillows back where they should be, and tug all the blankets off onto the floor so they don't get bloody.

“Okay,” says Sam. “Down – slow -”

Between them they get the swaying dead weight of ex-angel maneuvered to the bed and tip him over onto it in a controlled fall. Cas yelps with pain again as his leg is jostled, but with some rolling and tugging he's finally settled on the side of the mattress, staining the sheets with smudges of red.

Dean huffs out a breath. “Good. Cas?”

Cas' eyes have already slipped shut. He makes a questioning noise.

Dean pats his head and face awkwardly. “Sleep, good. Just... sleep it off.” He takes another shaky breath. “I'm gonna... go shower.” He turns and heads for the door.

“Hey,” says Sam, catching up with Dean in one stride. “Are you hurt? You said you got hit, too.”

“Hit,” says Dean. “Like – hit.” He pauses in the hallway, peels his shirt off, tacky with blood and swamp muck. He points to his upper side, where a bruise is already starting to bloom.

“Crack a rib or anything?”

“Nah.” Dean touches the bruise gently and hisses. “Just... starting to feel it now. Adrenaline's going. Gotta shower before I fall over.”

Sam nods and waves Dean on to the shower room. “I'll get you some clothes,” he says, turning down the hall towards Dean's room.

The mess level in Dean's room is reaching astronomical proportions, and his bed is completely stripped of sheets.. That's it: Sams going on a laundry strike.

As he's digging through Dean's dresser for clean shorts and a shirt, his phone rings. He answers and tucks it between ear and shoulder. "Hello?"

"I hear you've become a two-man war zone," says Charlie's voice.

"Oh, the usual, they went for a nice walk and got chomped by a monster. One or both of them are magnets for trouble."

"Well, I've dug up some ancient history for you and FYI, poor, long-lost James Novak's delightful body contains A negative blood, and is allergic to penicillin as well as sesame seeds, almonds, and cats."

"Ouch," Sam says. "Cas has been kinda making noises about wanting a cat, but they make Dean sneeze."

"Looks like neither of them is destined to be an old cat lady. What else can I do to help?"

"We'll need antibiotics for sure. God knows what all swamp bacteria got in there. What's the one they go for if you're penicillin-allergic? Doxysomething?”

"I'll do you one better than research. Let me just... stick my nose into the CVS database... add an account...” He can hear her typing away at lightning speed. “And now you just need to go pick up good old Mr. Fitzwallace's prescriptions in Lebanon, courtesy of his excellent insurance, piggybacked off another account. Painkillers, too?"

"We've got a little Vicodin left from the last time we needed it but – yeah, might as well, while you're in there."

"One 90 day scrip of hillbilly heroin coming right up. Enjoy your illicit substances. But seriously, is tall dark and oblivious okay?"

"He'll be fine. He stepped on a naiad and she nearly bit him in the junk.”

Charlie snorts. “Poor baby.”

“He's sleeping the sleep of the drunk and shellshocked right now. Dean's deliriously overprotective. You know, the usual.”

“Good luck dealing with that drama.”

“Oh, once I get Cas drugged up and set to spend a few weeks healing, I'm not going anywhere near them. I can't imagine Cas takes cabin fever any better than Dean does.”

She makes some more sympathetic noises, Sam thanks her for her helpful hackery, they say goodbye. Sam finally picks up the clean clothes he'd laid his hands on and takes them down the hall to the shower room. Steam wafts out when he pushes open the door, and he catches a glimpse of Dean toweling his hair in the stall at the far end. “Clothes by the door!” Sam calls. “I'm going into town, you need anything?”

“More liquor,” Dean calls back.

“Fat chance,” Sam says, and doesn't wait for another response. It occurs to him as he heads down the hall to his own room that he can't go into town as he is – smeared with Cas' blood, red caked under his fingernails. He sighs, picks out some fresh clothes for himself and goes over to the little in-room sink to wash up. They've got a decent-sized shopping list built up, he might as well take it with him. Cas shouldn't wake up for a while yet.

Shaking his head at the messes they manage to stumble into, Sam grabs his keys and heads out.

-

His ribs hurt, but he's broken them enough times to know that they don't hurt _that_ bad. Still, Dean towels off gingerly, barely ghosting the terrycloth over his chest, and it still makes him hiss. Stupid fucking fairies.

He feels like shit for being such an ass about Castiel's magical mystery woodland retreat. Now he's probably ruined it, the naiad won't let anyone anywhere near the spot again, and... well, he feels like shit in general, but especially about that. He still wants to kill the fishy monstrosity – what kind of nature spirit lives in a damn swamp, seriously? But he can't bring himself to make Cas feel any worse than he already does. Maybe he'll give in about the bees after all, in an attempt to make up for it.

He gets dressed, slouches back down the hall to Cas' room and steps inside. Cas is out like a light, not having moved a millimeter from where they'd dropped him. It's only midafternoon but Dean's eyelids are heavy, too, the fear and panic and pain all catching up to him in the form of ineffable unconsciousness. But he snaps himself back into focus briefly, long enough to find a hand towel and wet it in the in-room sink and try to clean Cas up.

Cas grumbles in his sleep as Dean works his t-shirt up his torso, wrangling one arm through after another. Since the fabric soaked up the brunt of the mess, he looks significantly better without it (of course Dean nearly always thinks he looks better without a shirt, but he can't even go there right now). His bitten leg is nearly blood-free after all the work Sam did, but the other is tacky with red, so Dean works on getting the worst of it. Eventually too tired to keep going, Dean decides he's satisfied and snatches one of the blankets off the floor before going around to the other side of the mattress. He settles down slowly, groaning in complaint as he shifts away from his bruised side. He tosses the blanket over both of them, settles down with a sigh, and closes his eyes.

When he's woken by a noise, it feels like no more than a minute has passed. The funky taste in his dry mouth says otherwise – he definitely slept for a while, but he doesn't feel rested. Sighing, he opens his eyes to see what the noise was.

It's Cas, still asleep, but his face is pinched and his breath is coming shallow, quick. Little groans escape every other breath.

Dean rubs grit out of the corner of his eye, reaches over and gently shakes Cas' shoulder. “Wake up,” he murmurs.

Cas' eyes fly open and he gusts out a breath, looking over at Dean. He shifts slightly and bites down a louder sound. Through gritted teeth, he says, “Dean, don't... don't feel good.”

“I bet you don't.” Dean pushes himself upright with a yawn. He puts his hand on Cas' forehead. Sweaty, but not hot. Good. “You gonna yak?” he asks.

Cas gives him a pained look.

“Throw up,” Dean sighs.

Cas looks so uncertain that Dean decides better safe than sorry, and stands up to find the small trash can that lives by the desk. He plonks it onto the floor by Cas' side of the bed. “Aim for that,” he says. “I'll go get some water.”

He shambles off down the hall to the kitchen, only to find Sam already there, wiping sweat off his forehead as he stands over a big pot on the stove.

“Time 's'it?” Dean goes straight for the fridge and pulls out several bottles of water.

“Uh. Late.” Sam fishes out his phone. “Eight. You slept all afternoon.”

“Ugh.” Dean cracks a bottle, chugs nearly the entire contents. “Cas woke up. Meds?”

Sam points at the kitchen table, where a pile of bags remains unsorted. One's from the pharmacy. “He's allergic to penicillin, did you know?”

Dean stares at Sam while finishing the rest of his water. “How the hell would I know that?” he asks.

Sam rolls his eyes and shrugs. “Instructions are on the package, the doses are more complicated than a cillin would be.”

“Got it.”

“How is he?”

“Whiny. Probably barfing right now.”

“Well, knock him out with hydrocodone instead of whiskey this time.”

“The hell are you making this late at night, anyway?”

Sam stares into the pot. “Soup.”

Dean gives him a long, level look. “Sam, you can't cook for shit.”

Sam sighs.

“That's sweet, man.”

“Shut up,” Sam grumbles.

“You're such a loving brother-in-law.”

“I'll hit you in your bruise.”

“Shouldn't you be wearing a hair net?”

Sam lunges for him and Dean laughs while he dodges. Okay, he does feel a little more awake and rested now, after all. Of course, now he's going to be awake all night. He skirts the table, picks up a box of saltines on the way past, and gives Sam a one-fingered salute.

“Go take care of your whiny baby,” Sam grumps. “I hope you know I'm not helping you carry him to the bathroom.”

Dean snorts. “He'll be too high to care.” He swings the pharmacy bag around on his wrist and heads out of the kitchen.

But walking down the hall, sipping on another bottle of water, he starts to really think about what he just said. It's been a long, long time since he gave any thought to the vision of the potential future Zachariah foisted on him. Not since Lucifer's apocalypse was averted. Next year will be 2014 – in fact, it's August now. They've got one year, almost exactly, to see if any part of that future comes true.

Dean quells the unhappy twisting of his guts and tries not to think about it. So many things that made that place what it was – is – might be – well, tenses aside, almost none of the factors are in place that made that future-vision possible. Sam's right here, adorably failing to cook soup in the middle of the night, not off walking the earth as Satan's meat puppet. Cas is... well, Cas _is_ human. Dean's never made that connection before, but how could 2009-him have foreseen Leviathan, Metatron, and everything that's happened since? But Cas is human now, presumably for good. So that puzzle piece is uncomfortably close to the same.

But Dean's not _that guy._ That's the biggest difference, he decides. That's the difference that will make all the difference. Dean is not that – that – carbon copy of his father. He _refuses_ to be that.

And he loves Cas. And Cas knows it. That's different. That'll be enough.

Still, he decides to be a little more careful with the hard drugs than he would be with Sam. He'll give Cas doses instead of leaving him with the bottle. Given how hard it's been for Cas to adjust to what it feels like to be a carbon-based, meat-suited, stuck-in-the-dirt omnivore, Dean can very easily see him taking to narcotic lalaland like a fish to water. It's a way to check out, and Dean's used it himself sometimes, but Dean's real addictions lie elsewhere. He's not fool enough not to know that truth about himself.

He never wants _his_ Cas to be that fried, self-loathing husk of a man he'd met in Zachariah's future. He won't let it happen.

He knocks once before pushing open Cas' door and sidling in. Cas is twisted over with his upper body hanging off the side of the bed, loosely holding the edge of the trash can, forehead resting on his arm.

“There's my ball of sunshine,” Dean says, going over and brushing a hand over the back of Cas' head. “Get it all out?”

“I didn't vomit,” Cas grunts. “But I still might, if you keep being cheerful.”

“Fair. Can you sit?”

Dean helps Cas push upright, making sure not to move his bad leg. He crams all the pillows and a spare blanket behind Cas' back so he has something to lean on. While Cas takes hesitant sips of water, Dean tears into the pharmacy bag and starts pulling out bottles, reading labels, and doling pills into his hand. “Antibiotic, antibiotic, painkiller, painkiller. There you go, bottoms up.” He pulls Cas' hand to himself and drops the pile of pills into his palm. “That's gonna knock you right back out. You got about half an hour before you're floored, so I want you to eat something and get cleaned up.”

Cas eyes Dean while he swallows the pills one at a time, each with a drink of water. “I don't need to be coddled,” he says, brow drawn. “It isn't a mortal wound. I'll live.”

Dean presses his lips together. “If you go nearly getting killed in front of me again, I'll kill you myself,” he says.

Cas' expression softens. “I'm not a stranger to pain, Dean,” he says softly. “I've died before. Just because I came back doesn't mean I didn't feel the fear of every moment of it. This is a small hurt in the greater scheme.” He reaches out to touch the back of Dean's hand, and Dean turns it around, grips tight. “Though I now have an enormously greater appreciation for the injuries you and Sam have taken on hunts all these years. I wish I had healed more of them when I could.”

Dean makes a sound that's half exasperated laugh, half resigned sigh. “Shut up,” he says fondly.

“Is your superfluous fear reaction because this is the first serious injury either of us has taken since we became sexually intimate?”

Dean snorts louder. “You really know how to sweet talk, Cas. Just eat your damn crackers and let the codone do its thing.”

Cas rolls his eyes and takes the box of crackers. Dean watches him eat and sip water for a minute, then turns around to get a better angle on the leg in question. By now Cas is only in his underwear – also bloody, though it's had time to dry. Dean plucks the bottom hem of one leg. “Off?” he asks.

Cas grimaces. “I'm afraid to move. It doesn't hurt right now. Well, it aches, but it's dull.”

Dean hmms. “Yeah, it's gonna be a bitch when you move. You need to, though. You ready? Stomach settled?”

Cas sighs. “I suppose.”

Dean considers the boxer briefs for another moment before reaching for the bedside table. The top drawer contains essentials, like lube and guns. What? Dean lives a complicated life. He picks up the nearest knife to hand and starts cutting into the fabric.

“Hey,” Cas complains.

“It'll hurt less than trying to get them off over the bandage,” Dean says, concentrating.

Cas grumbles but lets Dean do it.

Seams split, Dean eases the ruined underwear out from under Cas' ass and throws it in the trash. “How am I supposed to shower with this?” Cas asks, looking down at the bandage.

“No shower for a couple days,” Dean says. “Disturb the stitches as little as possible and don't get them wet. Right now I just want to get you to the bathroom, towel you off, change these sheets. And your hair's -” Dean reaches up to ruffle the unruly mess and Cas shakes his head to dislodge Dean's hand. Dean grins. “You're gonna get as bad as Sam.”

“I won't let it get that long,” Cas says. “I just like it when you touch it.”

Dean feels his face go hot and he coughs into his fist. “Yeah,” he grunts. “Well. Get up, you hippie.”

Dean eases Cas around so that his good leg's off the side of the bed, then lifts and lowers his bitten one. Cas puffs out long breaths past a clenched jaw, but he doesn't make any noise. Staring down, he notes, “My feet feel like they belong to someone else.”

“Narcotics kicking in,” Dean says. “Stand?”

Cas nods, arm tight over Dean's shoulders, and puts all his weight on his good leg as Dean pushes upright with Cas in tow. Cas does make a noise this time, hissing long and low. “The pain,” he says thinly, “has not been killed.”

“Step -”

“This is false advertising.”

“Shut up and move.”

It's a long, miserable shuffle into the bathroom across the hall. Dean doesn't even give a shit that Cas is naked, and Cas sure as hell doesn't care. Then again, Cas never cares, much to Sam and Kevins' chagrin.

Cas is pale and sweaty by the time they get there and Dean lowers him to the toilet seat. “Burns,” Cas says weakly.

“Yup.” Dean gets a towel and runs the tap as hot as he can touch, soaks the fabric. “Gimme an arm.”

It doesn't take too long to get Cas reasonably clean. Dean takes special care with the bad leg, cleaning up to the edge of the bandaging and going over it again with a wad of paper towels soaked in hydrogen peroxide. He trusts Sam but it's not like they have a sterile surgical theater to work in. It's been drilled into Dean's head by Dad, by Bobby, by his own personal experience from the very first days of his hunting career, that field wound care is all about keeping clean, clean, clean. There's no such thing as overkill when it comes to staving off infection.

By now Cas is leaning back against the toilet tank, looking glazed. “You're in a very good position,” he says, head tilted, eyes half-shut.

“Ha ha,” Dean says dryly. He's kneeling between Cas' legs. “You might pull something.”

“I hate stitches,” Cas mutters. “No showers, no blowjobs.”

Dean smacks his calf. “Maybe later.”

Cas groans. “I need to -” He waves vaguely at the toilet.

Dean gets up. “Need help standing?”

Cas kicks him in the shin with his good leg.

Dean grins, fluffing his hair one more time. “I'll change the sheets. Be right back.”

Bloody, swamp-mucky sheets: stripped, briefly considered, then trashed. Dean's got better things to do with his time than attempting to wash that mess out. Pillowcases, same. The mattress and pillows themselves have miraculously not been stained. Dean tromps down the hall to the laundry room, glares at the pile of undone laundry, and pulls the last clean set of sheets off the shelf that holds all the linens.  
Job done, he goes back to the bathroom and finds Cas doubled over the countertop, resting his head on his arms. “'M fine,” he mumbles when Dean touches his shoulder. “Thought I was gonna fall over.”

“Back to bed,” Dean orders.

Cas is gone the second his head hits the pillow. Dean considers him momentarily, hair disaster and slightly parted lips and a forehead cleared of worry lines by drugged sleep. Dean kisses the corner of his unresponsive mouth and doesn't even care how sappy it is. He pulls the blanket back up, makes sure Cas' feet are covered.

He pads back down the hall in socked feet to the kitchen to rescue his brother from the horrors of cooking, figuring that as long as he's awake, he can fix whatever Sam's concocted so there's something ready to eat tomorrow. 

-

Just as Sam thought, Cas takes bed rest orders exactly as well as Dean does.

Two days after the incident, Sam happens to be in the hall when Cas emerges from his room, leaning heavily on the wall and doing an odd shuffle-hop forward that doesn't put any weight on his injured leg. When Sam makes a move towards him, Cas vehemently waves him off.

"Cas-" Sam tries.

"I can go to the bathroom," Cas snaps, focused, "without help."

"Fine," Sam sighs, and carries on into the library.

Half an hour later, Sam gets up to get a beer and an aspirin, because the grimoire he's trying to parse is a nightmare and a half. When he walks into the hall again, it's to the sight of Castiel shuffle-hobbling back towards his room.

“Seriously?” Sam demands. “Half an hour. I could have just -”

“If you attempt to help me,” Cas says flatly, “I will break your foot.”

“You're worse than Dean. I didn't think that was possible.”

Cas makes a face at him. He reaches his doorway and slouches into the frame with a sigh of relief. “Dean's the problem,” Cas admits. “I can take care of myself.”

“Ah,” Sam says sympathetically. Yeah, the full force of the Dean Winchester Mothering Laser is a terrible thing to bear. “In that case, I'll let you fall on your ass all you want.”

“Thank you,” Cas says. He nods his oddly somber, formal goodbye, goes into his room and shuts the door.

The next day Sam sees Cas limping down the stacks, looking at dusty book spines, and says nothing. When Cas eases into a chair at the same table where Sam's working on his laptop, it's with an air of relief and gratitude. Sam gives him a little smile and keeps working.

Dean isn't so easy to win over to Cas' desire to be up and about. One morning when Cas is hauling himself along the walls to the showers (he's a clean freak, it seems, and not bathing for two days made him incredibly frazzled), Dean emerges from their room with an epic case of bedhead and an annoyed expression. "Would you quit that?" Sam can hear him bitching all the way from the kitchen. "Let me help."  
Sam also hears Cas sigh and give in. At least he's giving Dean a little bit of an outlet for his helicoptering tendencies.

In the kitchen, Sam watches Cas pogo-jump around on his good leg and gets to thinking: what he really needs is a crutch, but he'd probably reject it outright. Dean hates crutches with an unholy passion, and as stubborn as he is, Cas would probably also take the suggestion as a slight to his ability. But maybe he could use some other prop. And Sam knows just how to pitch the idea.

"Hey," he calls to Cas one morning, five days after the naiad adventure. Cas looks up from the library table where he's engrossed in something Sumerian and moldy. "Come to the gym for a minute."

Cas quirks an eyebrow, but follows him without question. Cas doesn't have to hug the wall so close anymore, just touch it with one hand for balance while he shuffles awkwardly along. Thankfully the gym isn't far past the kitchen. As soon as he steps inside, Sam picks up the two quarterstaves he'd chosen the night before and tosses Cas the shorter one. Cas catches it neatly. His reflexes are still off the charts, as they've been happy to discover in the weeks since he fell.

"Know anything about staff fighting?"

"Yes," Cas says simply.

"Cool," says Sam. "I was thinking that some drills could help with your balance. Call it physical therapy."

Cas tilts his head in that familiar interrogative way, but a ghost of a smile tugs at his lips. "Thank you, Sam," he says.

Sam drops his grip on his staff. "Heads up," he says, but instead of going up he swipes low at Cas' shins. Cas catches it easily with a sharp knock of wood on wood, and smiles for real.

They don't spar seriously, but Cas takes well to doing some slow strength moves with the staff held out in front to aid with balance. He starts sweating after relatively little exertion and quickly gets annoyed with his gimpy leg. When his knee starts to buckle, Sam casually suggests that he take a break but keep the staff. He doesn't argue.

The rest of that day and the next, the sound of the wooden staff-end clunking on the tile floor echoes around the bunker. The noise makes it easier for Dean to find Cas, wherever he is, and yell at him to get off his feet, but Cas' relief at having an easier way to move around improves his mood by about a thousand percent. He laughs Dean off now, or else follows him to their room with an expression that makes Sam clear out for the next couple of hours (those two either think the bunker is more soundproof than it is or they just enjoy tormenting Sam – probably both).

One afternoon, though, Sam rounds the corner into the library with a half-eaten sandwich in hand to find Dean at the usual table in the library instead of Cas. Dean's chair is tipped back onto two legs, his feet on the table, Sam's computer on his knees.

Sam looks around like he's waiting to get punked. “Where's Cas?”

“He went for a walk,” Dean says. His tone expresses his opinion of the statement.

“He's not...” Sam trails off. “Is he... okay?”

Dean glances up; the tense irritation clears from his face and he shakes his head. “That wasn't code, man. He just wanted some air.”

Sam relaxes. “Oh.” He hesitates. “I'm gonna... go for a walk. Too. Then.”

Dean smirks at him. “You're worried too, you giant dork.”

Sam flips Dean off and heads for the bunker door, finishing his sandwich as he steps outside.

It's a gorgeous day. The air is warm, with a whisper of the first cool crisp of fall in each mild breeze; the sky is massed with thin clouds that block the direct sun but diffuse its brightness into a blanket of pale slate-gray. The tops of the trees around the gravel drive rattle in a wind that passes overhead but doesn't reach down to disturb the thick bed of pine needles and leaf mold that softens the ground for miles around the bunker.

Once outside, Sam takes a deep, lung-clearing breath and realizes he has no idea where Castiel has gone. He decides to venture out into the woods to the south, where the trees are thinner and there's a clearing bordered by a lazy creek which Sam sort of thinks of as the boundary of their “property.”

As he walks he relaxes into the sussuration of needles and idle chatter of birds. Even if he doesn't run into Cas, he's happy he came out. He should drag Dean out, too. When they were on the road all the time, they both got so used to the outdoors that they took it for granted – just a quantity of distance to cross, a calculation of gas mileage and pit stops. But there's nothing like being underground nearly all the time to hit Sam over the head with a fresh appreciation for piney air and tree-framed glimpses of open sky.

Sam reaches the clearing and looks across. A familiar back faces him, sitting on the ground at the bank of the creek. Sam makes no attempt to be quiet as he crunches over the layer of old pine needles to join him. Sam toes at the needle-softened ground, decides that now isn't the time to be fussy about getting his ass damp, and sits down next to Cas.

Cas sighs. Sam looks over at him. He's sitting with his good leg folded towards him and his hurt one stretched out. His angel blade is on the ground next to one leg, the quarterstaff is laid across his thighs, and in one hand he has a wicked-sharp pocket knife.

“Hey,” Sam says. “Nice day.”

Cas flips the pocket knife closed and turns the staff slowly, studying it. “Yes,” he says.

Sam leans over slightly to look at the staff. “Decorating?”

“Warding.” Cas spins the staff again, finding one spot and pointing to it. “Enochian.” He traces symbols in a downward, counterclockwise spiral. “Some of my spellwork, some from the bunker's lore. Some personal.”

Sam grins faintly. “'Property of Castiel Winchester, hands off'?” he jokes.

Cas barely smiles in response. He thumbs over the smooth end of the staff, tracing the grain. After a moment, he asks, “How long should this wound take to heal?”

Sam scratches his chin. “Few weeks, I guess. The stitches are probably ready to come out now. That was major muscle damage, though, so you can't expect it to just feel like it never happened. This is good, being active. Keep the scar tissue from drawing up.”

“You and Dean always continued to do your job, through any pain or injury.”

“Not any.” Sam thinks about the rawhead that nearly nuked Dean by pure dumb chance, or the car crash with Dad that left Dean hanging by a thread. He barely grazes the surface of the memory of the psychiatric hospital, too, before shoving it down deep, deep, deep. No, there have definitely been wounds that knocked both Sam and Dean out of play. “But you kept on with yours, too. I seem to remember some serious shit you went through.”

Cas huffs a laugh. “I suppose. Healing grace was very different from healing muscle. I suppose what's the most different is the way the passage of time feels. I know it's only been a week. A week shouldn't feel so long.”

Sam shrugs. “Welcome to linear time.”

Cas shakes his head, looks at the pale sunlight sparkling off the surface of the creek. “I will grant that some things are much more beautiful in slow motion,” he says quietly.

Sam leans back on his hands and watches the water, the trees, the passage of clouds. Sam hasn't appreciated sheer humanity this much in a long time. He knows Cas still aches from what he's lost, but he can't help feeling like what he's gained has been worth it. At least, he hopes it has.

-

That night Dean holds Cas' leg down while Sam snips and pulls the stitches. Every once in a while Cas jerks or twitches, but on the whole he's a better patient than Dean has ever been.

Sam hadn't been counting when he did them, but now he does. "Eleven," he says, pulling the last one. "That naiad really got you good."

Cas thunks his head against the tabletop and sighs. Dean lets go of his leg. "I would prefer for that to never happen again, but I am aware of the adage 'beggars can't be choosers.'"

"Don't jinx yourself,"' Dean says.

"There is actually some causal relationship between wishing for a thing not to happen and its occurrence if you examine the quantum diffe-"

"Nope," interrupts Dean. "Take your drugs and go to bed. No quantum talk."

Cas grumbles but admits that he's very much ready for another pain pill. "It isn't that same sharp pain," he says thoughtfully while he gulps down water to chase his meds. "But the ache is astonishing. It feels – deep, and it comes in waves."

"Deep tissue bruising," Sam says. "Pain in the ass but the least bad kind of injury to have, really."

"Wait til you bruise a bone," Dean says.

"Or break a bone," says Sam.

Cas gives them both a death glare and hops off the table, weight all to one side. "I'm going," he says coolly, "to bed. Where I will not break anything, than you very much." He limps away.

Dean scoffs, crosses his arms and watches him go. After a second he tips his head down and to the side slightly.

“Seriously? I'm right here,” says Sam.

“What? I like watching him walk away.” Dean makes a grabby motion with one hand.

“Ew. Please stop.”

Dean punches Sam in the shoulder and follows Cas, smirking.

-

Dean drifts slowly into consciousness the next morning, distantly aware of a tingling in his fingers and toes and feeling so warm, so enveloped, so cozy... at first he attributes the tingle to a limb falling asleep but it isn't that unpleasant; in fact, the opposite. Half-conscious, he lets out a long, low sigh and shifts his weight only for the movement to be halted by a firm band of pressure around his waist.

He wakes a little more and assembles a mental image without opening his eyes: arm around his middle, an ankle on his calf, a hand near his face, a warm, damp puff of breath on the back of his neck. He smiles faintly, love and exasperation warring. This is not a new occurrence. Who ever knew that Cas as a full-on mortal would be so damn huggy? Dean has already resigned himself to eternally being the little spoon.

The tingle is not so normal, though, and as he wakes he pins the feeling down as a holdover from the dream he was having. He doesn't remember the details, but the sensation needs no script. It might've been about Cas, might not've, but whatever it was, it's sure about Cas now. And Cas is clearly on the same line of thought, if the morning wood pressing into the top of Dean's thigh is anything to go by.

Cas makes a little noise, splays his fingers against Dean's belly and rocks faintly against his back. That's when Dean realizes he's still completely asleep, the bastard.

Dean plucks Cas' hand from his stomach and squeezes it, rubbing firmly back against Cas' chest and erection. Cas whuffles some kind of attempt at language, snorts faintly, and wakes. He makes a questioning noise into Dean's ear, but Dean rubs against him again in answer and Cas lets out a little groan. “Yeah mkay,” he rasps.

Dean moves his arm, wriggles and flips over and rearranges until Cas is at the perfect makeout angle. They both have nasty morning breath, but Dean decides that means they cancel out or something and, more importantly, he doesn't care. He settles in for a nice long morning of kissing his angel and eventually, hopefully, getting off.

But it can't have been more than three minutes when there's a loud knock on the door. “Dean,” Sam hollers. This is Cas' room, but Sam knows the score.

Dean groans faintly into Cas neck. “Pretend we're still asleep,” he whispers.

Cas tips his head back up and captures his lips again in answer. Dean relaxes, sliding his tongue over Cas' bottom lip and into his mouth.

Sam knocks again. Goddammit. “Hey, wake up. You in there?” The doorknob turns. Goddamn Men of Letters didn't believe in locks, apparently. “Wake – oh for _fuck's sake.”_

Dean keeps making out petulantly, but Cas starts laughing and breaks the kiss. Dean rolls over and gives Sam a pointed middle finger along with his glare.

“We have a case,” Sam says, “if you feel like _doing your job.”_ He shakes his head and shuts the door.

“Ugh,” says Dean.

“I don't have any stitches that could be pulled now,” Cas says hopefully.

Dean hmms. “Sam can wait five minutes.”

“I think you're underestim – oh _hmmng_ never mind.”

-

Half an hour later, Sam is about ready to kill those two. He hasn't _heard_ anything, thankfully, but no amount of brain bleach can remove the images he's already unwillingly glimpsed over the past weeks. He staunchly continues reading about the common monsters that plague New Mexico.

Finally, Dean and Cas make their less-than-grand appearance, Dean shuffling along and yawning massively, Cas clutching a coffee mug and idly scratching his scalp. Sam still can't get used to seeing Cas like this. He's starting to be on Dean's side about ordering Cas to get a haircut, if only because seeing unkempt, curling hair covering the tops of Cas' ears and creeping down his neck is starting to really weird Sam out.

Cas sits gingerly and Sam closes his eyes and counts to ten. When he opens them Dean's in the process of throwing his bare feet onto the library table, which doesn't help. Dean gives Sam a bright, shit-eating grin. “Sorry,” he says, not remotely sorry. “Came as soon as we could.”

Cas looks over at Dean and blinks. “Oh,” he says after a moment. “That was a pun based on -”

“Do not,” Sam says loudly, “say. Another. Word.”

“Fine,” Dean says. “What you got?”

Sam sighs. “So, you know Garth still coordinates hunters when he can -”

“Yeah, in between living the, uh, the raw-deer-heart-pie life.”

“Yeah.” Sam glares. “Anyway, he called Elmore with a thing and Elmore called Tracy and – basically the phone tree bounced until it hit us. It's in New Mexico and I called Chaz already, I don't think Garth has his number but it's in his area...”

Dean rubs his eyes. “Jesus, what is this, hunter high school? I don't know half these names anymore.”

“You would, if you listened for once,” Sam says. “It's not just us against the world anymore, Dean. Things are really moving out there. Hell, since we spread word about how to deal with angels, I've heard back that even a few of the fallen ones who've tried to make trouble have run into plain old everyday hunters who've added holy oil and banishing sigils to their arsenal. If we can figure out how to recreate Kevin's demon bomb – I think you might've been right, maybe we didn't even need to lock hell down to keep it under wraps.”

“Well, yay,” Dean says. “Go us. Pats on the back all around. What is this actual job, though, and why did I have to wake up for it, and who the hell is Chaz?”

Sam nearly headdesks. “Chaz Herrera?” he says.

Dean gives him a blank look.

“Ex-Homeland guy down by the border, La Llorona picking off fence-jumpers who left their families behind because she perceived it as unfaithful...?”

 _“Oh,”_ Dean says. “Yeah. I liked that guy.”

“Would it kill you to remember a name?”

Dean shrugs.

Sam sighs. “Anyway, he's still down there helping people immigrate under the radar and keeping a couple of safe paths clear. Scared, unprotected, high-risk people – easy monster pickings, you know, like they don't have enough problems with regular humans trying to shoot them. It's in his wheelhouse but he's gone north on vacation, and we're half a day away, so. Might as well be on us.”

“Vics?”

“Partially eaten,” Sam says, pulling his laptop closer and waking it up. He clicks through coroner's reports, spins the computer so Dean can see. “From the photos I'm thinking any kind of big carnivore. Rugaru maybe. I don't think there's motivation beyond killing to eat.”

“So predicting a next move is out.”

“I don't know, there might be some connection between the victims I haven't caught yet, or there might be a pattern to the thing's movement. Something to figure out on the road.”

“New Mexico?”

“Hobbs,” Sam confirms.

Dean takes his feet off the table, stretches his arms over his head. “Okay, let me get dressed and we can -”

Cas hasn't said a word this whole time, but now he sets his coffee cup on the table with a solid thunk. “I'm coming,” he interrupts.

Sam and Dean both look at him.

Cas tips his head. “That wasn't a pun.”

Sam chokes on nothing, coughs into his fist. “Uh, got it. You want to -”

“Accompany you on this case, yes.”

“Cas, you're still healing,” Dean says. “This is probably a good thing. Us getting out of your hair -” He gives Cas' uncut hair a pointed glance. “Letting you get some rest...”

“I don't want rest,” Cas says simply, firmly. “I want work. I want purpose.”

Dean opens his mouth, then closes it again. Sam gives a helpless half-shrug, because they have definitely been pitching to Cas all this time that he ought to be a hunter, and, well... they can't go back on that now. Both of them have worked cases with injuries more serious or less healed than Cas' week-old naiad bite.

“If you don't allow me to ride in the Impala, I'll find another vehicle in the garage and follow you,” Cas says. He picks up his coffee again and takes a long drink.

Dean stares for a second, then says, “You don't know how to drive.”

“I could figure it out,” Cas says, giving him a look. “I'm sure driving is very... straightforward.”

Dean goes bright pink and looks anywhere but at Cas. Sam's sure he's missed something but is equally sure he never wants to know what it was. “Okay,” Sam says quickly. “Yeah, sure. I'll let Kevin know he's fending for himself for a few days.” He pushes his chair back and stands. “Uh, Cas, have you packed – anything -?”

“I'm ready,” Cas says, idly sipping coffee. “And I have a few ideas of how I may be useful.”

Sam tries not to think that that sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. “Okay then,” he says, and hurries away. Behind him, he hears Dean start to say something to Cas, but he puts himself out of earshot as fast as he can, heading into the depths of the bunker in search of their reclusive prophet.

-


	2. Chapter 2

It's an eleven-hour drive from the bunker to Hobbs, New Mexico. After seven, Dean's eyelids are starting to feel leaden. He's already had as much coffee as he can stand – any more equals heartburn central. He would take an energy shot or a caffiene pill but his overwhelming preference would be to simply take a nap. He worries all the time these days about creeping up on forty years old. His plane-phobia based method of travel was fine and dandy when he was in his twenties and could absorb any kind of punishment he gave himself (sleep-dep, poorly timed meals, a constant diet of stimulants) as well as any kind that got dealt to him on a hunt. Now, he's pretty sure he can only handle one of the two, and by necessity it has to be the latter.

Sam has been awake this whole time, too, searching online, calling endless numbers to follow up leads, pretending to be anything from FBI to Fish and Wildlife to, once, a Bigfoot-tracking cryptozoology nut (in order to gain the trust of another guy who was the same thing). He's rubbing his eyes now, exhausted. He didn't manage to uncover much that will make their hunt any easier once they get there.

They'd left the bunker around noon and the sun's just starting to fall now, painting the barren, scrubby landscape around them in shades of copper and spice. It isn't picturesque, sandy desert; it's scrubby, sunburnt, and what greenery is here is all spindly and dry-boned, spread close to the ground, providing minimal shelter for the handful of lizards and little scurrying things that make up the wildlife of northern New Mexico. They've already crossed the state line, but Hobbs is way down south.

The early-autumn temperature is pleasant so they'd rolled the windows down a while back. Dean had hoped that the wind in his face would keep him awake. Unfortunately, it's just warm enough that all it's done is make him ten times sleepier. He rubs his eyes and shakes his head, then reaches over to shove Sam's shoulder.

“Mm?” Sam says.

“You awake?”

Sam sighs. Then yawns. “Mos'ly,” he slurs into his hand, mouth wide. “Need me to take over?”

Dean grunts. The stretch of highway they're on is almost empty. He pulls off onto the shoulder, parking amid gravel and weeds. He sighs deep and long, stretches his arms back and forth over his chest. “I feel old,” he complains.

“You are old,” says Sam, and Dean shoves him again.

In the backseat, Castiel rouses. He'd fallen asleep hours ago, lulled by the lack of anything to do and the endless, same-y landscape. He sits up straight, rubs his eyes. “We there?” he asks, voice rough.

“No,” Dean says, popping his door. “We're...”

He trails off as a thought occurs to him. It's really dumb. The dumbest, stupidest thought... that... makes complete sense and is reasonable... and he simultaneously doesn't want to do and wants nothing else.

“Dean?” Cas asks.

“Uh,” Dean says. “Cas. How about a driving lesson?”

Sam turns and stares at him. After a moment, though, he starts to smile.

Dean's tempted to punch him again. “Shut up, Samantha.”

“Didn't say anything.”

“He needs to know how to drive.”

“I'm not arguing with that.”

“Okay, so -”

Cas interrupts. “I would very much like to learn to drive, Dean.”

Dean coughs. “Okay then. So.” He slides out of his seat, stands. “Come up here.”

They shuffle places. Sam takes the back, Dean the passenger side. Cas settles stiffly into the driver's seat, hands barely touching the wheel.

Dean takes a deep breath. “Look at your feet,” he begins. “The pedal on the far left is the clutch. Middle's the brake...”

In the back, Sam settles in for a nap, grinning to himself.

-

They roll into Hobbs at almost midnight only to find that there's no room in the inn. That is to say that at the first cheap, clean looking motel they pull up to, there are no singles and only one double.

Sam grimaces. "We can go down the highway another-"

Dean rolls his eyes. "Christ, when did your sensibilities get so delicate? I'm tired, get the double."

Sam swipes at his head and Dean ducks. "No hanky panky," Sam orders.

"First of all I'm going to pretend I did not just hear you, a grown man, seriously say _hanky panky._ And also, I'm a fucking professional, man, give me some credit. We're on the clock."

Behind them, Cas groans while stretching. "I can assure you, Sam, I have no interest in any activity other than sleep."

"Fine," Sam says, and goes back into the office to pay and get the key.

Dean walks in, drops his bag, takes his pants off, falls over on his face on the first bed and is asleep within a minute. He never ended up napping in the car because once Cas was behind the wheel he was too keyed up with worry and micromanagement. Cas at least takes the time to change clothes and brush his teeth, but within fifteen minutes he mutters 'good night' to Sam, climbs in beside Dean, pulls the covers up so far only a puff of black curls is peeking out, and doesn't move again.

Having just gotten some sleep in the car, Sam stays up for a while longer, rechecking all the resources he's found and digging up a few more. He thinks there might be something to the neighborhoods that have been hit – a connection between each of their churches, perhaps, a guest speaker who was there within a week of each attack. And there's a witness report that the police tried to sweep under the rug, probably due to embarrasment – a person who hysterically demanded over and over to see a sketch artist because he wanted to describe an animal. Interrogators wanted him to name the animal, maybe pick it out of a Google page of pictures, but the witness insisted it wasn't a real animal. That witness is on the top of Sam's list of priorities.

A soft snore breaks Sam's concentration and he looks up blearily to see that the digital clock shows half past one in the morning. Doesn't sound like Dean's snore – must be Cas.

Sam laughs silently to himself, closes up his computer, settles down and turns off the light.

-

"I love New Mexico," Dean says with his mouth full. "There is literally nothing they won't put green chilies on."

Sam eyes his brother's heart-attack burger (with green chilies) with distaste. "I hope you have some antacids."

Dean eats belligerently. "Think this guy's gonna show?" He jerks his head at the old barn they're parked near.

After hitting the police station and morgue as feds first thing in the morning, they'd gone back to the motel and changed into rough work stuff. Their best lead is the old anti-government guy Sam found last night – who, after his post-close-encounter freakout and subsequent shutdown by the local yokels, has apparently decided never to be seen in public again. They'd posed as concerned members of his church to his neighbors, asking where he might be found, and it had finally brought them to this tiny barn and the old goat pasture out behind it. It's late afternoon and they're waiting for the guy to bring in his herd.

They haven't heard from Cas all day except for a couple of texts to the effect that he hasn't found anything. He'd requested that they leave him in the motel this morning, had said that he would make his own way around town to find out information. Dean wasn't a fan of the idea from the beginning and he's been extra antsy to wrap up their investigation for the last couple of hours. When they'd stopped to pick up some food he'd wondered aloud to Sam if they should go pick Cas up or bring him something. Sam had told him to stop being a big baby, or at least to stop treating Cas like a big baby.

Sam isn't worried about Cas. If he were in trouble he'd have said so, and Sam doesn't think he's self-destructive enough to do any real damage to his leg by pushing himself too hard. He has money and the town has buses. He knows what questions to ask. He'll manage. Hell, he might even do better than Sam and Dean, who have so far turned up bupkiss.

Sam slumps in his seat, munching on the crackers that came with his salad (which had also, in fairness, had green chilies on it), squinting into the goat pasture against the lowering sun. He points at a dark speck. "There he is."

Dean shoves the last bite of burger in his mouth, tosses the crumpled paper and opens the door. Sam follows, wiping cracker crumbs on his jeans.

They walk up to the edge of the pasture and loiter by the fence, hands in pockets. When the guy is close enough to see in detail, Sam waves. The figure stops momentarily, then keeps approaching. He has three goats on leads following him.

When he's a couple dozen yards out, the old guy stops, reaches back, and Sam suddenly recognizes the shape of a rifle slung behind his back before the guy pulls it down and to the front, pointing it at them. Dean yanks his hands out of his pockets and puts them up. “Hey,” he calls. “No need for that.”

“Been expectin' you,” the old man yells.

Sam blinks. “I don't think...”

“Mandy Stall called me,” he says. Shit, the pious neighbor they'd used the “we're naught but poor concerned backwoods church boys” routine on. She'd been very eager to hear that her crotchety old neighbor was being brought back to Jesus. “I hear you're some outreach bullshit from Our Lady. Worried about me. You're a little late, boys, considering I ain't gone to church since my Lula passed fifteen years ago.”

“Uh,” Dean says, spreading his hands and giving his most charming grin. The old guy walks towards them, gun up, flickering back and forth between their heads. “You caught us. We were trying to find you. You gave a statement two weeks ago about an attack you witnessed – a man who was killed by an animal?”

“Sheriff said all he was gonna say on the subject, and so have I.” The guy is a couple of yards from the fence now.

“We want to know what kind of animal you saw,” Sam says in his most soothing voice. “No matter what you describe, we'll believe you.”

The old man scoffs. “Wanna sell your goddamn pictures, I know,” he says. “Seen enough antlers glued to dead rabbits in my time.”

“No,” Dean says sharply, “we want to kill it and burn its corpse.”

Sam hisses at him, but Dean elbows him in return. Sam concedes control of the conversation.

The old man blinks, finally startled. He lowers his gun half an inch. “Say again?”

“Something's out there killing and eating innocent people and we're here to shoot it in its ugly face and put it in the ground.” Dean shrugs. “Well, I'm assuming it's ugly.”

The old man considers them for a moment, then lowers his gun, sets the safety. The goats mill around him, nosing at the dry ground for something more to eat. “Really,” he says, skeptical.

“Cross my heart,” Dean says.

The old man slings his rifle back over his back, steps up to the fence and reaches out a hand. “Tom Hatcher,” he says. “Lemme get the goats in and we'll talk.”

Dean and Sam let their hands down, both shake Tom's, and settle in for a comfortable interview.

-

"It's a black dog."

"I think there are enough discrepancies that it would be dangerous to leap to the conclusion..."

"He _literally_ described the thing he saw as a black dog!"

"Dog- _like,"_ Sam corrects.

"Canine," Dean says, making wishy-washy motions with his hand. "Four legs, teeth, appears at midnight, bites your face off, ergo, black dog."

Sam sighs and rubs his temple. "There's the library." He points.

Dean whips into the parking lot. The sun is fully down by now, but the haze of twilight lingers. The temperature is dropping quick. Sam had sweated through the neck of his shirts while standing outside in the sun talking to old man Tom, and now the back of his neck is freezing from the chilled damp spot.

“How is he even still in here?” Sam says, as they mount the steps to the front door. The embossed lettering on the glass lists the weekday hours as 7 am – 6 pm. It's a quarter past six. Cas had been perfectly clear on the phone, though: he was in the Hobbs public library, and would be until they arrived to pick him up.

Sam almost expects the doors to be locked, but he pushes inside easily. Half the lights are off – it's clearly after closing time. He glances around the wide, open entryway and spots a couple of people at one of the two checkout desks, chatting animatedly, and – oh, yeah, wow, that's Cas. Wearing the designer clothes Charlie picked out for him all those weeks ago in Topeka. Leaning over the desktop, grinning brightly, touching the back of the woman's hand he's talking to. That's Cas... flirting. With a hot librarian.

Sam glances over at Dean, not knowing what to expect. Dean's expression flickers between disbelief and irritation in a heartbeat. Sam touches his shoulder but Dean shakes him off. “He isn't -” Sam mutters.

Dean strides away, off towards Cas and the librarian. Sam hurries after.

“Hey there,” Dean says, too loud, sidling up next to Cas and putting a blatantly possessive hand on his shoulder. “Been looking for you.”

Cas turns his smile towards Dean. “Ah,” he says. “Hello, Dean.” His attention is still mostly on the woman, whose long, glossy black hair is pulled back into a tight ponytail, showing off her high cheekbones, slim-framed glasses, and bright, cheerful smile. “My ride is here,” Cas says to the woman. “Thank you so much for letting me stay a few more minutes. I'm sure you're ready to go home.”

“Yeah,” Dean says, grin too bright, tone too cheerful. “I bet you need to leave.”

Sam expects her to look affronted or at least confused, but she just laughs. She looks at Dean and sticks her hand out over the desktop. “It's nice to meet you, Dean, I've been hearing all about you today.”

Dean's face freezes. He reaches out to shake on autopilot, opening and closing his mouth silently.

Cas laughs, leans over and swiftly kisses Dean's cheek. “And Dean's brother Sam.” Cas gestures from Sam to the librarian. She reaches out to shake Sam's hand, too, while Cas says, “Alison White Elk. She's been extremely courteous and helpful.”

Dean seems stunned into silence, so Sam hurries to break the awkward pause. “Nice to meet you, and uh, thanks for...” He gestures vaguely at the closed doors and the dimmed lights.

“Oh, no trouble whatsoever!” Alison says. “It's been so much fun talking mythology with Professor Smith, I wish I could keep him longer. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your vacation.”

Dean starts to repeat, “Prof...” and Sam delicately steps on his foot. Dean hisses.

“Yes, thank you,” Cas says. “And thank you again for the assistance and information.”

“You're welcome! You can go on out and I'll lock up behind you.”

Cas nods and smiles one last time, and turns for the doors. As he steps away from the desk, he picks up an object that had been leaning against it, which Sam hadn't even noticed was there – a slim black enameled cane, exactly Cas' height. Cas walks with barely a hint of a limp, cane-end silent on the carpet. Sam feels almost as boggled as Dean looks, but he shoves Dean in the back to get him moving, and they follow Cas out the glass front doors into the last dregs of twilight.

_“What,”_ Dean says. He apparently can't decide which question to ask first, because he just gives Cas an incredibly betrayed look, like Cas' social competence is a personal affront.

“I had a very good day,” Cas says, returning Dean's look with a cool pleasantness. A challenge. “How was yours?”

Dean bristles. He looks like a wet cat.

“Okay,” Sam says. “Car. And where the hell did that come from?” He points at the cane while shoving the other two towards the curb.

“The bunker,” Cas says. “It fit in my duffel, separated.” He holds it up, slides the top third apart from the rest.

“You stole a frickin _sword cane_ from the bunker?” Dean's finally found his voice.

“Stole?” Cas asks, looking affronted. “And besides -” he waves the top part around, eyebrow raised: it clearly does not contain a sword.

Sam opens the back door, ushering Cas up to the front to let him have the leg room. Cas gives him a grateful glance, sliding into the car with a sigh. Dean turns the key and the engine roars. “That is totally a sword cane,” he says belligerently.

Cas relents, giving Dean a little grin. “It is,” he says. “I found it in a storeroom. It used to be a curse box, of a sort. The blade was haunted, but the Men of Letters managed to destroy it in the 1920s. The spell on the sheath that contained the haunting broke when the spirit moved on. And I didn't steal it.” He casts Dean a glare. “When I no longer require a prop, I'll put it back.”

“Sorry,” Dean says, deflating. He pulls out onto the highway. “I didn't mean that.”

Cas nods, leans back in his seat. There's a minute of stretched, awkward silence.

“So,” Dean says. _“Professor._ Hot librarians hit your buttons?”

But Cas shakes his head and chuckles. “Dean,” he says, “I told her you were my spouse.”

Dean chokes on nothing, falls into a coughing fit while giving Cas a look that's half disbelief, half terror. Sam bursts out in a startled laugh, exacerbated by Dean's look.

“What?” Dean all but squeaks, hitting himself on the chest.

“I made up a cover story that would assist me in eliciting information,” Cas says calmly. “That's what you do, when you investigate.”

“As – authority -!”

“I said I was a scholar of languages,” Cas says. “She took it to mean that I taught at a university. That's a form of authority. It made her willing to discuss research and mythology with me.”

“But you were flirting!”

Cas gives Dean a sympathetic look. “I was using the same body language I've observed you use on hundreds of occassions. It worked very well. Charm and flirtation are valuable social tools.”

Dean splutters into silence. Sam laughs even harder, tears forming at the corners of his eyes. He wheezes while Dean flails back over the seat, trying to smack him in the head. At length, he coughs and gasps to a halt, taking deep breaths and wiping his eyes. In the meantime, Cas just looks smugly out the window.

“Okay,” Dean says at last. “Fine. I hope your good day was _productive.”_

“It was,” Cas says. “Would you care to know what you're hunting and why it's here?”

Sam sits up straighter. “Wait, you solved the case?”

Cas smirks.

“Oh, get over yourself,” Dean says, yanking the wheel too hard to make a right turn and having to correct with a wobble.

“I can't help but feel I've been redeemed from my previous abysmal attempt at hunting,” Cas says. “Hm?”

“Just lay the infodump on me, will you?” But Sam can hear the hint of amusement and pride in Dean's voice now, too.

Cas clears his throat. “El cadejo. It's a spirit, similar to a tulpa – supported in its manifestations by collective consciousness and belief, but it is not created by that belief. It's an independent entity, an aspect of judgement. You won't be able to kill it.”

Sam's heart sinks. Dean looks over at Cas. “Way to think positive.”

Cas shakes his head. “I mean to say, it has no _life_ to take. It's not physical, nor can it be banished to any place where dead spirits reside. But I believe you can stop it from manifesting here and now. There's a ritual involved, a sort of blanket area of absolution that will communicate to the cadejo that this region is not meant for divine judgment, only mortal.”

“So...” Dean says slowly. “What is it, only attacking bad people? Because vic number one was just a college freshman, and vic two was an ex-con, but he'd been building houses for charity for almost ten years since he got out.”

“Hm.” Cas fiddles with his cane, frowning. “It is – you once encountered Osiris, didn't you?”

Dean grunts. Sam isn't too pleased by the memory, either.

“It doesn't – _coerce_ guilt,” Cas says carefully. “Not through words or trial. But its presence... warps mortal minds. It induces fear to incite panic, because it can only attack to kill when its victim flinches. It has a way of captivating, focusing attention on itself, to such a degree that turning away from it or breaking eye contact can make someone go instantly mad. You must maintain eye contact and not flinch, no matter how hard it pushes. Some legends say you mustn't speak to it, either, but I can't confirm that. It usually feeds on fear, not death. The fact that it's started killing here means it's desperate. There isn't enough belief to support it.”

“So,” Sam says, “how did you get all this? How do you _know_ it's el cadejo?”

“Oh, Alison has seen it,” Cas says. “It came to her, too, in its positive aspect.”

“I'm sorry, its what?” Dean says.

Cas blinks. “It appears as either a black or white figure. Its appearance is generally canine -”

“Black dog!” Dean declares, hitting the wheel.

Cas considers. “Yes, the European-descended myth of the black dog is a fragment of the same collective belief in...”

“Told you!” Dean points at Sam.

“Shut up,” says Sam. _“I_ told you there were discrepancies and I was right.”

Cas ignores them both. “Cadejos traveled to South and Latin Americas with Spanish immigrants,” he says. “Its appearance this far north is unusual. A thread of belief must have brought it here – perhaps a new resident.”

Something clicks for Sam. “The churches!” he declares. “There's been a guest speaker going around to local Catholic churches, giving sermons. He's a priest from Oaxaca.”

“Catholic priest, hauling an old-world spirit of judgment around with him?” Dean says. “Sounds about right.”

“He won't know it's tied to him,” Cas says. “He can't help stories he must have grown up with, a lingering belief in something more primal than the rigid ceremony of Catholicism. Best to leave him alone. We won't need his participation to do the ritual.”

“Come on, don't we want a priest in our corner if we're gonna do a good old I-cast-thee-out-Satan?” Dean grins.

“El cadejo is _not_ Satan,” Cas says.

“Yeah, yeah, I know that.”

Sam cuts in. “You said it has a positive aspect? What's that?”

“It may appear as a white canine, as well,” Cas says. “A spirit of protection to those it's judged innocent. If the town were to come under attack by any other kind of creature, I imagine the cadejo's function as a protective spirit would destroy them or rout them out. It won't allow any judgment but its own.”

Dean lets out a long breath. “It's not gonna be real thrilled about this ritual, is it?” he says, resigned.

Cas tilts his head in concession. “It may... perceive it as a threat to its territory, yes. The goal of the ritual is essentially to contact it, to... explain to it on its own terms why it shouldn't be here. But it won't want to let go. Belief is hard to come by for many of these older constructs.”

“Great,” Dean sighs. He stops for a red light and looks over at Cas. "We're almost at the motel. Did you eat? Want to stop for something?"

"I'm fine," Cas says. "Alison directed me to a cafe near the library. Have you had piñon coffee? It's amazing. I want to buy some before we leave the state."

Dean shakes his head. "I can't believe we fixed your nascent eating disorder and turned you into a foodie by accident."

"You should try chickory coffee, Cas," Sam says with a grin. "If a case doesn't turn up in Louisiana in the next month or so we should just go there anyway. Food trip."

"You kidding?" Dean says. "There's _always_ a case in Louisiana. State's got more monsters than a cat has fleas."

"Gumbo," Sam says. "Beignets."

"Oh yeah, we're going," Dean says. "I wasn't arguing with that."

They pull into the motel lot and are still idly bickering all the way across the pavement and into the room. Inside, Dean collapses across his bed, groaning. "Ritual," he says, glancing up at Cas while stretching out a crick in his neck. "Can we do it tonight?"

Cas hesitates, then says, "No, we'll need ingredients we don't already have."

"Good," says Dean. "'M tired. Show-"

"Shower!" Sam beats him to it.

"Dammit, Sam!"

Sam snatches up his bag and dodges into the bathroom. "I'll be fast," he promises.

Cas steps closer to Dean. “We can shower together,” he says quietly, laying his hands on Dean's head while Dean sighs and leans his face into Cas' stomach.

“I'm gonna pretend I didn't hear that!” Sam yells from closed bathroom.

-

Dean rouses to a light touch on his shoulder. A crack in the blackout curtains lets in the dim violet-gray of predawn. Somewhere behind him, Cas is faintly snoring. Sam's leaning over the bed, touching Dean's shoulder again. Dean squints at him.

“Went out for coffee,” Sam says quietly. “Heard over the police scanner, another body.”

Dean closes his eyes against the crack of dawn and the bad news.

There isn't a discussion about going to the crime scene: it's what they do. Even when they think they have the answer, it's always worth it to dig for every possible clue, interrogate every possible witness, cover every possible angle. They've been fooled before. They have too much at stake in each other and in the lives they want to protect to risk not being thorough.

They dress in silence, somber fed suits all around this time. Sam asks where Dean wants to pick up breakfast and Dean answers in monosyllables, but Cas doesn't say a word all morning. He accepts an egg and bacon muffin in silence but only picks at it. He sips his coffee and stares out the window as they drive out to the frontage track off a county road where the police, the scanner tells them, have already identified the body of Ollie Sanchez, a county electrical engineer who was out working on a downed power line last night.

Dean parks a reasonable distance from the scene and they kick up dust on the way over, coating their black shoes a matte sienna and staining their pants. Dean and Sam flash badges as second nature; Cas remembers his after he sees theirs.

Dean lets Sam do most of the talking, watching Cas instead. The body is off the road, under the electrical pole where Ollie had been working. An EMT has already covered it with a sheet. Dean guesses they're not much for crime scene forensics when all the evidence points to a coyote or some other ordinary desert carnivore. In fact, Sam, Dean and Cas are getting irritated, suspicious looks from all the locals, because why are the FBI investigating an animal attack? And why are there three of them?

Unprompted, Cas turns his back on the scene and walks back to the Impala. Dean nudges Sam and indicates with a jerk of his head that he's following Cas. As he leaves, he can hear the sheriff asking, “New guy?” And Sam responding, “Uh, yeah, he's shadowing. I mean, you're right, this isn't really an FBI case, but he's gotta get field certified, so...”

Dean passes far enough away that Sam's sincere-sounding bullshit fades into the general murmur of law enforcement. It's quiet over by the Impala, on the other side of the county road. Cas is leaning on the side of the car away from the scene, looking out into the wide, flat scrubland. Soft dawn light paints the cacti and manzanita in pastels, and leaves no shadows.

Dean leans on the car next to Cas, crosses his arms and doesn't say anything.

After a while, Cas says, “We could have tracked down the ingredients last night. We might have still had time to perform the ritual by midnight.”

Dean still doesn't say anything.

“If I were still an angel I would have sensed el cadejo as soon as I set foot within its sphere of influence.” Cas squints out over the desert. “I could have banished it with a thought. I could have raised its victims from the dead.”

Dean nods. He lets silence pass for a minute. Then he says, “Would you have?”

Cas looks over at him.

“When you were an angel, would you have done all that? You _could_ have.”

Cas stares. After a while he looks back out into the desert, anger in every line of his face. He spits, “No.”

Dean takes a deep breath. “A lot of people have died because I needed to get some sleep, Cas. A lot of bad things have happened while me and Sam were in a diner or on the road. We usually don't even know there's a case until someone's already dead.” He reaches around the back of his neck, rubbing at the short hairs there and looking at his red-stained shoes. “A hell of a lot more people would be dead if we didn't do what we do anyway.”

After a while, the line of Cas' shoulders relaxes. He looks down at his feet, too, and Dean looks up in time to catch the expression of hurt and regret that passes over his face.

“You can think,” Dean says, “that your negligence killed that guy, and it won't do a damn thing but make you feel like dogshit. Or you can screw your head on straight and understand that a _monster_ killed that guy. And you can get mad. And if you're angry enough and smart enough, you can take on anything.”

Slowly, Cas cracks a reluctant smile. He turns his head Dean's direction but doesn't quite look up at him. “That's the attitude that beat the devil.”

Dean awkwardly shrugs with his arms still crossed. “It's what works for me.”

Cas closes his eyes. “I do love you,” he says quietly. “Very much.”

Dean chews the inside of his cheek. He uncrosses his arms and, hoping none of the local cops are looking across the road, raises Castiel's face to his. He kisses the ex-angel's temple, the corner of his eye. Cas is the one who pulls Dean down another inch to kiss him on the mouth. It's chaste but lingering, gratitude wrapped up in touch and silence.

A resounding thump of flesh on metal makes Dean jump, jerking away from Cas. Sam's on the other side of the hood; he knocks on it one more time for good measure. "Chill," he says, "we're in a red state."

"Fuck 'em," Dean growls.

"Pick your battles," Sam says, glancing back to the crime scene and the milling cops.

Dean's prepared to argue more but Cas renders the point moot by shrugging away from Dean, opening the car door and sliding into the backseat. "We'll need psychotropic fungi," he says.

Dean goes around the hood, gets in the driver's side. "Excuse me?"

"Thistle, a fragment of tiger's eye, and a blood sacrifice won't be hard to come by,” Cas says patiently, “but it may take some time to acquire a specimen of teonanácatl and a fire opal, so we should get going."

“Tayawhata cattle?” Dean asks.

“Psilocybe mexicana.” Cas frowns, and uncertainly adds, “Shrooms?” like he isn't sure he's using the word correctly.

"Blood sacrifice is the part I don't like," Sam says.

Cas shrugs. "A drop of blood from any of us will do. Thaumaturgy is about symbolic links. It's the synecdoche of spellwork. You've both been using much more blood than you need to in most of the spells you do that call for similar ingredients."

"Now you tell us," Dean says, rolling his eyes as he pulls away from the murder scene.

-

It takes the better part of the day to find all the ingredients they'll need for the ritual. After the last woo-woo herbalist crystal healing shop they hit up is a bust for both drugs and gems (to Dean's disbelief), Sam has a brainstorm and calls Chaz Herrera to ask him where he usually goes for resources. Dean and Cas head into the little cafe near the library to pick up some food while Sam stands in the public park across the street, doing the broken half-yelling of someone struggling to talk over bad reception.

Dean's too busy debating with Cas whether deadnettle will work as a substitute for thistle to actually look at the menu. When a waiter finally comes over, pad and pen in hand, Dean looks at him blankly for a moment and says, "uh."

"A chicken salad croissant," says Cas, "a turkey club without the bacon, and a reuben. And three of the biggest coffees you have, piñon."

"To go," Dean adds quickly. As the server trots off, he turns an incredulous look on Cas. "The hell was that?"

Cas squints at him. "Placing our order."

"I didn't tell you my order. I didn't look at the menu yet."

Cas grins faintly. "I know. Sam told me what he wanted, though."

"Oh, I know a 'no bacon' club from a mile off," Dean says. "I don't know how I'm even related to him. Maybe I wanted a burger, though."

Cas hmms, leans his chin on his hand. "You love reubens. And their rye and sauerkraut here are both homemade."

Dean presses his lips together.

"And I had their house cheeseburger for lunch yesterday," Cas adds. "It wasn't very good."

Dean deflates. "Okay, fine, but don't get in a habit of this mind-reading stuff."

Cas smiles widely, eyes crinkling up. "Did I read your mind?"

Dean backtracks. "No. I mean, you guessed well."

"I read your mind," Cas says happily.

"You know that's just a saying, man."

"I read your mind the mortal way. The human way."

"Yeah, yeah, your kung fu is the best."

Cas remains cheerful all the way outside with the food. Sam's still in the park, focusing intently on listening to his phone, finger in his other ear. He waves distractedly to acknowledge that he's seen them but walks further away.

Dean bypasses the car and finds the nearest park bench, sits with a sigh and starts breaking open containers to find his sandwich. He passes Cas the croissant, makes a face at Sam's club, and finally settles in with his reuben.

Around the first mouthful, he says, "Oh my god." His tastebuds are all having tiny orgasms. "That is not right." He takes another bite lets slip a tiny involuntary moan.

Cas is way too smug, focusing on pouring copious tiny packets of sugar into his huge coffee.

"Screw you," Dean mutters, taking another big bite.

The piñon coffee, he isn't such a fan of. Cas glares at him after he says so. "Your mouth is broken," Cas says.

"It's okay?" Dean says defensively. "It tastes weird. Like if coffee could go bad."

Cas grabs his cup and takes a sip. He shakes his head. "You're wrong," he says, full of assurance. He takes another bite of his croissant. "It's all right, I love you despite your glaringly incorrect opinions."

Dean laughs a loud and honest belly laugh. "You are such a sarcastic shithead," Dean says. "What does that have to do with turning human?"

Cas smiles. "I think it has more to do with being around you all the time in non-life threatening situations."

Dean laughs.

Finally Sam comes over to join them, flopping down on Cas' other side and accepting his coffee with a muttered thanks. He takes a deep swallow; it's already had time to cool off. "Mm," he says, "that's good."

"Sam's mouth is not broken," Cas declares.

"Shut up," says Dean.

Sam grabs his plate away from Dean. "So Chaz won't be back for a while," he says. "He's up a freaking mountain in the Rockies fighting a yeti."

"Wha?" Dean says around a full mouth. "I wanna fight a yeti! Tell him to come back and trade!"

Dryly, Sam says, "Ha frickin' ha. He said he was sorry he wasn't here to help but he's got a snow god to appease or something. Or maybe something about bees, his reception was total bullshit. Anyway, he said he's got what we need and told me where his cache of hunting supplies is, and how to get in without setting off any of his traps."

"In town?"

Sam shakes his head, chewing. "'Bout half an hour outside Carlsbad, which means more than an hour away from here. It's -" he looks at his phone. "Ten after five... round trip with time to dig through his storage unit, uh... back here by nine at the latest? That's if we want to go now. We could call it a night, hit the road in the morn-"

"We're doing the ritual tonight," Dean says firmly, looking over at Cas. "No point letting another midnight go past. No guarantee someone'll get hurt, but better not risk it."

Sam nods. "We don't all need to go," he says. "I can head over there while you two prep the rest of the stuff and set up a space. Get some rest so you're ready in case it gets rough when the cadejo realizes what we're doing."

Dean finishes off his sandwich and closes up the box. "Sounds like a plan. Cas, what kind of space do we need?"

"Outdoors," Cas says. "A road, preferably. It doesn't need to be a crossroads or paved, just a path that people travel along. Cadejos walk mortal pathways when they manifest."

Dean nods. "Frontage road, then. We'll have to look for one without a police presence, they'll be out trying to catch the coyote or whatever they think it was that killed the power guy. Well need the car." He looks over at Sam.

"I saw a car lot in town," Sam says. "Drop me off and I can boost one, have it back before anyone notices it's gone."

"My little brother the delinquent," Dean says fondly.

“Says the guy who taught me how to use a slim jim when I was eight.”

Dean laughs. “You barely reached the windows.”

Sam reaches around behind Cas' head to yank Dean's ear. Dean swats him away, hitting Cas in the process. Cas grabs both their hands and pushes them apart. “Honestly,” he mutters.

Dean bumps him with his shoulder. “Need to teach you how to use a slim jim now,” he says. “And how to hotwire.”

Cas smiles. “Maybe some of the less criminal aspects of automobile care first.”

Dean blinks. “You want me to teach you about cars?”

Sam stands with a groan. “Okay, for you that's like sex talk, I'm outta here.”

Dean's still staring at Cas. “You know,” he says thoughtfully, “you should have a car. Your own car. There's a ton to choose from in the bunker's garage.”

Cas grins broadly.

Sam points at the Impala. _“Work?”_ he says loudly. He taps his wrist even though he isn't wearing a watch.

“Yeah, yeah, Jesus.” Dean rolls to his feet and offers Cas a hand to pull him up. “Let's smoke ourselves out a cadejo.”

-

They've built a fire in the middle of the old dirt road. It's small, a bud of flame instead of a blossom, but in the endless darkness of night over the plains, it shines like a beacon. For want of anything better to do, Cas had struck out northward and walked for twenty minutes before returning. He'd said he never lost sight of the fire.

The spell is prepped: a little greenwood on the fire for the smoke, aromatics like sage and rosemary (purchased in little plastic shakers from the grocery store) already smoldering away. It smells a little like Thanksgiving and a little like fear. Dean has conflicted associations with the smell of burning herbs, always has.

They'll wait to add the stone and blood until Sam gets here. The other organics go last, magic mushrooms included. They don't actually need to breathe the smoke, for which Dean is grateful. He hates spells that involve drugging himself. Cas spent half an hour explaining why they need the hallucinogenic property without actually needing to hallucinate, rambling on about thaumaturgy and invocation and some other Samlike, nerdy stuff, but Dean can't really say he was listening to the words. Just the sound of Cas' voice. He likes it when Cas sounds confident and assured. Reminds him that even mojo-less, they've got the kind of power on their side the likes of which no hunter has ever had.

Plus it's kind of a turn-on.

The road they've chosen is barely a road at all, just a straight line of dirt conspicuously free of shrubs. The last tire tracks on it are a week old at least. It was their only option, though: the cops and the rifle-wielding locals are out in force at every larger road, after three animal deaths in such a short timespan. A coyote deranged enough to kill humans without eating the bodies isn't unheard of, but it's rare enough that everyone wants to be the one who bags it.

Dean's phone rings, the sound tiny in the vastness of the desert. There isn't an object to echo off of for miles in any direction. Unsettled by the noise, Dean answers.

Sam's ten minutes outside town and wants directions. Dean pings them to him and hangs up, blowing on his fingers and sticking his hands in his pockets. It's so cold already and the sun only went down fully a little over an hour ago. Dean had thrown on his heavy jacket from the trunk, but he'd also realized a terrible oversight: they'd never bought Cas any cold-weather things. They'll have to do another wardrobe run soon, because autumn's coming on, and besides, there's always a case somewhere in a higher latitude where it's freezing all year round.

There's always a case, period.

Cas had shrugged and picked up Sam's jacket, just for something to wear over his shirtsleeves. Now, Dean looks across the road to where he's standing several yards out into the scrubland. The light barely touches him out there, but Dean can see how Sam's coat falls halfway down the backs of his thighs.

Laughing faintly to himself, Dean crosses the road and walks out to join his angel.

When Dean edges right up next to him, shoulders touching, Cas glances over. He shakes one hand free of the comically oversized sleeve of Sam's jacket and reaches over to touch Dean's forehead.

“What are you healing?” Dean asks.

“Nothing,” Cas says. “Giving you a vision.” He moves his hand down to cup Dean's cheek and turns his face out to the desert. “Look up.”

Dean does. It's a cloudless night, the stars like diamonds strewn on black velvet, and the sky's so endless Dean can all but feel the roundness of the earth under his feet. After a while he starts feeling dizzy, and a crick complains in his neck. “What am I looking at?” he asks.

Cas huffs a laugh. “Heaven.”

Dean turns to face him and leans in to kiss him soundly, because he deserves it. Cas responds with parted lips and a quiet sigh. The tip of his nose is cold against Dean's cheek. Dean cups his face to hold in warmth and keep him close.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter that rates the big red E. Also an altered origin story for the Pimpmobile.

Sam spots the pinprick of their fire from nearly a mile away. He clicks the headlights off for a second to see it better in the dark, make sure he didn't imagine it. The old pickup he'd boosted has something clattering unhealthily under the hood, and the glass windows rattle in their housing, but it's a decent enough vehicle. The headlights are bright and cast a glow way out into the tussocky plains, the spiky grass forming strange, sharp shadows like clawed hands.

As he rumbles closer he can see the low black streak of the Impala by the side of the road, far enough from the spell-fire that if anything goes wrong it won't be hit in crossfire – hopefully. Sam doesn't spot Dean and Cas until he's nearly on top of them, though. He bumps to a stop near the Impala and hops out of the high cab, paper bag in one hand, and sets out across the scrub to the misshapen lump of clothes he'd spotted on the ground out in the dark.

Sure enough, it's the lovebirds, lying on the ground, heads close together, looking up at the sky. Sam's pretty sure he sees Dean quickly retracting his hand into his sleeve, as if he'd just been holding Cas' and didn't want to get caught. He's such a child.

Dean rolls his head back to glance upside-down at Sam. “Took you long enough,” he says.

Sam waves the bag over Dean's head. “Get up, jerk.”

Dean pushes himself upright with a loud groan of complaint. “Bitch,” he mutters, pushing up to his feet and brushing enormous quantities of dust off his back, stomping to get the worst from his pants. Cas does the same, but with less complaining.

Sam nearly laughs aloud at the sight of Cas drowning in his jacket. He slaps at Cas' back, knocking loose dust and dry grass. “Get your own clothes dirty next time,” Sam says.

Cas makes a face at him and holds out his hand. Sam passes over the bag. Cas peeks inside and sniffs, then turns his head away with a slight gag. “That's it,” he says. “Are we ready to begin?”

Sam nods at the both of them. “Lose the coats,” he says. “Might need to move fast.”

They head over to the Impala to toss the jackets in the backseat, pop the trunk and pick a few final armaments. Cas has already warned them off of projectiles, so they leave the guns where they are and go for silver instead – in Sam's case a silver sword he'd pilfered from the bunker, in Dean's, one of their oldest silver knives (one of Dad's) and a machete. Not silver, of course, but Dean's a firm believer in sharpness trumping magic. If someone told him he had to fight some kinda monster with a stick from a special tree, he'd show up with a club made from said tree, with nails and razors hammered into the end. Nothing wrong with covering all the bases.

Cas has his angel blade in one hand and the paper bag in the other. They head back to the small, flickering fire. Dean picks up another bundle of the grass and dry twigs they'd collected earlier in the evening, and feeds the flame. It sputters and jumps.

“Here goes nothing,” Sam says.

Cas opens the bag, takes out a tiny round stone that flares blinding-bright in a thousand rainbow shades when the firelight hits it at certain angles. The fire opal. He rubs it between his fingers, buffs it on his shirt, then opens his mouth and places it under his tongue. He glances at Dean and Sam, then throws the paper bag and all the rest of its contents onto the fire.

While the brown paper crackles and curls, Cas starts speaking into the fire. He lisps faintly around the stone, not that it's easy to tell in whatever language he's using – Sam guesses Old Castilian but can't be sure. It sounds like a question, whatever it is, not a command. An entreaty.

Dean flips the hilt of the machete over in his palm a couple times, edging out to Cas' left. Sam goes right, glancing into the desert but mostly watching the road. Cas said cadejos appeared on roads. Paths that have been walked, paths that cut into the stillness of solid land and ferry souls, information, belief. Roads are places that belong to nowhere, not a part of the place where they are, but a part of a greater in-between.

Cas starts to repeat himself, hand clenching around the hilt of his blade. If Sam didn't know better he'd think Cas was nervous. Maybe he is, a little: familiar weapon, unfamiliar body. He can't know his muscles will remember how to fight until he actually gets into it. Maybe they won't have to get into anything at all, though, maybe the cadejo will be amenable to being told that it can't stay in this land...

The second they get el cadejo's attention, though, Sam can feel it, and he knows it won't be leaving without a fight. A breeze picks up in the still night air, lukewarm and clammy-damp, like an exhaled breath. It's rank, too, stale decay mixed with infection and piss. It smells like illness. Sam swallows back bile. He's positive he didn't inhale any of the smoke from the burning mushrooms, but his vision is going mirage-watery. The fire takes on flashes and curls of color like the ones inside the opal. The flashes spread from the fire like a second smoke, like Sam can see the tiny flaws in the fabric of the world at just the right angle for light to hit them.

Sam shakes his head and blinks to try to clear the weirdness, but as soon as he opens his eyes he sees what they've called up. The weirdness remains, and the thing is at the heart of it. It's hard to see directly; he can look at it, but he isn't sure of its edges, or its shape, or its size. It is a dog, though – he thinks. He's pretty sure. It is, like old man Tom had told them, dog- _ish._

Dean was wrong – Sam's seen black dogs, and this is _not_ a black dog. This is its own creature, and it's pissed.

Sam remembers what Cas said about looking at a cadejo and tries not to meet its eyes, buts it's hard. There's a magnetic force about the creature, a painful hook behind Sam's eyes, an ache in his temples. He can see the eyes of the beast in his peripheral vision, empty things that seem to have no color, but which shine brighter than the fire. He hefts his sword in front of himself, putting both hands on the hilt now, adopting a low guard. El cadejo is still and watchful.

Out of the corner of his eye he sees Dean doing the same but in a different direction. Sam glances over – and in that heartbeat he's aware that the beast isn't in front of him anymore, it's in front of Dean, or it's always been in front of Dean, or it's vanished altogether – Sam can't tell – he looks back at where it was with a spike of panic, swings partly side to side to check all his angles – he circles to Dean and looks at Cas who's looking at the fire where Sam thinks he see the animal's face in the _flames_ -

The horrible smell intensifies and Sam barely has time to swing his weapon as the dogthing leaps towards him out of nowhere. Not towards him – past him. He clips it – the blade passes through like the creature's made of smoke, but it reels from the blow nonetheless, like a ghost hurt by a salt round. A sound rises along with the wind, a whining growl that doesn't seem to come from the cadejo itself but from the air around them.

Sam sees Dean swing at a shadow; the whine rises into a screech that cuts off abruptly. Behind Sam, Cas is still talking, louder and faster. Dean makes another sudden move and Sam thinks he catches a glimpse of the cadejo jumping at him. No, not at _him_ -

"It's going for Cas!" Dean yells. "Guard!"

Sam immediately spins to put his back to Cas, swinging his sword out in an arc that catches the cadejo before Sam even sees it – Dean's right, it's trying to avoid the two of them, get past them, get at Cas.

"Make a triangle with the fire," Sam calls. "It hasn't come through there."

Dean moves to get in position, catches the snarling dog figure right in the face with the machete and undercuts it with the silver. It falls back, snarling, a rumble that comes from everywhere and sounds like distant thunder.

Behind them, Cas' voice falters and he starts coughing. He gasps out more words, but they come fewer and further between.

"Cas?" Dean demands, still watching the darkness of the road, eyes darting everywhere.

Cas wheezes. "Can't -"

Dean looks torn. Sam barely has time to say "Dean don't-" before Dean turns around, taking his eyes off the road.

Sam immediately has a faceful of angry animal spirit. As he beats it back with the silver sword, he yells, "Goddamnit!"

"Cas, Cas, hey," Deans saying. "Cas? Sam!"

Sam slices through the animal's incorporeal neck and chances a look back. Cas is kneeling on the ground, staring into the fire like he can't look away, cords in his neck standing out with the tension of whatever's choking him into silence, and Dean's yanking on his face, trying to pry his jaws apart. Sam backs up closer to them, catches another faceful of horrendous odor and swings to his left.

He misses by a hair's breadth. The cadejo slips under his sloppy guard and rams full force into Dean's side, tearing him away from Cas and throwing him off the road entirely. Sam can hear fabric ripping, thinks he can see the black spray of blood on the colorless nighttime sand.

Cas falls forward, eyes still on the fire. Dean isn't moving where he landed. Sam tries not to panic, but it's a close thing. "Cas," he says, "now would be a good time for any of this to work, come on, come on!"

Cas rattles in what little air he can, and as if moving against some enormous restraint he slowly brings his hand to his mouth. He manages to get one finger between his teeth, pries into the opening, and with an awkward wriggle and jerk he manages to flick the fire opal free. It thunks into the dirt and Cas heaves in an enormous breath, hacking and gasping, like a drowning man who managed to find the surface just in time.

"Won't listen to me," Cas gasps. _"Dean-!"_

"He'll be fine," Sam snaps, "what do we do?"

Cas rubs at his throat, coughing, but before he can open his mouth to reply, the black swirl of canine vengeance leaps at them again. Sam can't get close enough to hit it but Cas is staggering up in an instant, angel blade in hand, and when the beast barrels towards him he plunges the dagger its chest, ripping through the whole smoky body from front to back. The figure distorts, reforms. Thunder _cracks_ this time, like lightning hitting close by, and even Sam can see that the cadejo's insubstantial figure seems to be bleeding trails of foul-smelling shadow. It slinks sideways a few steps, then flickers into nothing.

"Take the stone," Cas gasps, finding his footing and flipping his blade into a reverse grip. "I've explained to it why it can't be here but it won't listen to me because of what I was – because an angel can't speak for mortal justice. It has to be you, Sam."

Sam looks up and down the road but there's no sign of the beast – he looks out into the desert to see Dean rolling agonizingly slowly to his side, climbing to his knees – then to his side, where Cas abruptly lashes out with blinding speed and yells "Sam!" even as he lands another gash along the cadejo's flank.

"Okay!" Sam yells, "okay, I - Jesus okay -" He turns to the fire, scans the ground in a panic to find the damn magic rock. He drops to his knees, brushing all over the place, until the lump is under his fingers and he picks up the gritty, dusty thing. He can't see the colors of at all under the dirt. "I don't speak ancient Spanish!"

"It doesn't matter!" Cas yells. "Just talk to it! _Dean!"_ This last he bellows out into the desert, at the figure swaying drunkenly on his knees.

Faintly, Sam hears Dean say, "mgood."

Sam tries to scrub the dirt off as much as he can, then hurriedly sticks the stone under his tongue.

Everything is suddenly eerily quiet. Where before there was the crackle of flame, the whining of the wind and the rumble of the cadejo's pain expressed as thunder, now there's just... breathing. A sound like someone breathing close behind him, in his ear. He expects the breath to smell awful and flinches when he inhales, but the foul smell is gone along with all the noise. All he can smell is the fresh air of the open desert.

He stands and turns, and it feels like moving underwater. He can still see Cas struggling to fight, but to Sam it looks like he's swinging at nothing. Bursts of light and color pop and fizzle at the edges of Sam's vision. He wonders if having a stroke feels like this.

He turns towards the fire again – because he's compelled to, because he knows he needs to look it in the eye in order to really speak to it.

The cadejo is in the fire, watching him. It's clearer inside the flames than it ever was in the dark: the shape of a dog, the size of a horse. It has no color in the fire, but now, Sam can see its eyes. It's hunched over, in pain, bleeding – not blood, but it is bleeding... whatever it bleeds.

"Please," Sam says. It doesn't matter what language he's speaking. "You can't have this town. You can't be here."

It doesn't speak back but he feels the ripple of its understanding, undercut with anger. It doesn't want to leave, and it's angry that something like – something like _that thing_ – Sam is hit with a sudden overwhelming disgust, and realizes that the cadejo means Castiel. It's calling Castiel an abomination.

Defensiveness wells up in Sam but he tamps it down because he doesn't want to pick a fight with the spirit over anything else. As long as it leaves, it doesn't matter what it thinks of Cas. It's a good thing Dean isn't trying to reason with the thing. "I know this is a fresh place," Sam says, "but it isn't your home. You can't stay. This place belongs to the people who were already here."

The disgust fades. The cadejo is tired, Sam realizes. It's exhausted, not just from fighting them and being wounded, but from being so far away from where it belongs. It followed a thread of belief up here, all the way into a new country, but now that it's here it's discovered that the vein leads nowhere.

"You want to go home," Sam says. "It's okay. You can still go."

He can feel the spirit crumbling. Its anger recedes – its presence, its aura. The flickering colors from the fire dim, become more muted.

Out of the corners of Sam's eyes he can see Cas still tensed to fight, and Dean staggering back into the circle of the firelight with his blades at the ready. But there's nothing left to attack. The black dog is done.

Sam still watches the fire. After a moment, the figure of the dog in the fire lowers its head, breaking its eye contact with Sam. It starts walking forward.

A white dog steps out of the fire, and the fire is gone. Not even smoking embers, just a cold pile of ash and a couple of semi-whole twigs. The white dog is hard to look at; Dean and Cas both flinch and look away. Sam rolls the stone under his tongue and keeps looking anyway.

The white cadejo walks up to Sam, twitches its ears, and keeps walking past. Sam itches to touch it - he wants to know what that coat feels like. It looks like starlight. But he doesn't, because this creature is the farthest thing from domesticated it's possible for a dog to be.

The cadejo passes by Sam, by Dean. When it flicks its ears towards Cas there's another faint quake of a growl in the air, but that seems to be its final word on the subject.

It steps off the road, raises its head, and begins a long walk south.

After a few heartbeats of silence, Sam is suddenly jostled – Dean punching him on the arm. He looks away from the cadejo for a second and when he looks back, it's gone. The feeling of being in slow motion vanishes, too, and the sharpness of smell and the richness of the colors around him. He suddenly becomes aware of the fact that he has a mouth full of dirt.

"Eugh," he complains, spitting out the fire opal. It's a pretty rock, sure, but nothing about it seems so magical anymore. Sam shoves it in his pocket, makes a face, spits repeatedly. "Gross."

"Is it gone?" Cas croaks.

Sam looks over at him. "You didn't hear it?"

Cas shakes his head. “You had the speaking stone, only you would have heard it.”

“Oh.” Sam rubs his temple. “Yeah, it's gone. It was tired and it wanted to go home anyway, it hated it here. It just – _really_ didn't like you.” Sam looks at Cas. Cas grimaces and shakes his head, jaw clenched. Sam frowns at him. "You okay...?"

Cas puffs out a long breath, squeezes his eyes shut and bends over, hands on his knees. "Fine. Need a minute," he says hoarsely. "I was prepared for pain, not nausea." He sucks in another breath.

Dean steps over to him and pushes him on the shoulder, not hard enough to knock him down but enough to stagger him slightly. Cas looks up, startled. "You don't take the dangerous job without telling anyone!" Dean says angrily. "Don't fucking do that again!"

Cas straightens with some difficulty. "I didn't know it would be," he snaps. "I didn't know it would react to me that way."

"Still – you, you _don't,_ don't do that to me, man."

Anger flashes over Cas' face, too, and he shoves Dean back. _"You_ got hurt!" he accuses.

Dean snarls. "And your fucking leg is bleeding again, asshole."

Cas looks down. "Oh," he says. He sways.

"Damn it." Sam barely catches Cas as he lists to the side. Sam nods at Dean. "What's your damage?"

"Ah." Dean turns so Sam can see his other side. There are gashes in his arm and side - through the blood and shredded shirt, Sam can't tell how many or how deep.

"Then nobody gets to throw any stones," Sam says, holding Cas up with one arm, sword in the other hand. "Let's just get out of here."

"Fine," Dean says curtly. He's shaken, hurting, and covering it all with anger as usual. Sam doesn't take it personally, never has. He hopes Cas knows to do the same.

Sam limps Cas back to the Impala, pops the door and sits the ex-angel on the edge of the seat. He fishes the fire opal out of his pocket and hands it over. Cas takes it automatically, then glances up at Sam, questioning. "Not a fan of magic highs," Sam says.

Cas nods and pockets the stone himself.

"Or of swapping spit with you," Sam adds. "Wrong Winchester."

The joke drags a weak laugh out of Cas. Dean, close behind, slaps Sam on the back of the head.

Sam walks back out to kick apart the cold remains of their fire and check that they haven't left anything behind. Dean's machete is lying in the middle of the road, the litterer. Sam grabs it up, brushes away the last of their footprints, and stares out over the desert for a moment, listening. No sound but the tiniest rustle of dry grass and a cricket in the distance.

He turns back to the car only to see Dean kneeling by the open passenger door, furiously making out with Cas. Cas is clutching at Dean's head and face like the smitten idiot he is. Sam sighs. He ignores them as best he can, goes around to the driver's side and pops the trunk. He makes as much noise as humanly possible tossing all the weapons back in the trunk.

"If neither of you are on the verge of death," he calls loudly, "I'm gonna let you get back to the motel yourselves."

Dean surfaces for air. "Yeah sure," he says shortly.

"Gonna take this truck back to the lot," Sam says, but the other two are back to ignoring him. "Walk to the nearest hotel," Sam adds. "Spend all the reserve cards. Thousands of dollars of room service." He pauses; nothing. "Strippers," he needles. "Strippers and blackjack."

"Have fun," says Cas, preoccupied.

Sam sighs. "Okay," he mutters. "Can't take you anywhere."

He picks up his overnight bag from the Impala and slams her trunk closed. He climbs into the truck, cranks it, and sits for a minute. If he closes his eyes he can still see a bright dog shape burned into the darkness.

He shakes his head. Weird case, but not the weirdest – and he feels pretty good about it, in the end. He just never, ever wants to run into a cadejo again.

He revs the engine, pulls away from the Impala, and heads out onto the road. Away from the desert night this time. Towards the lights of the city.

-

Cas shifts too far to the edge of his seat and breaks away from Dean with a sudden hiss and hiccup of pain. Dean pulls back, coming to his senses, at least a little bit.

"Shit," he mutters, looking at Cas' leg. He lays his hand over Cas' knee. "Bad?"

Cas hesitates for a second, then shakes his head. "I think it's minor," he says. He nods at Dean's side. "You?"

"Not deep." Dean twists his arm carefully to look at the damage, prods one cut. He hisses. The endorphins of the fight are wearing off, pain seeping through the druggy daze. He's right, though, the cuts aren't deep. The cadejo mostly just tackled him like an angry linebacker. He'll be a walking bruise tomorrow.

"I'm tired," Cas murmurs.

Dean nods and stands. He looks around. "Sam left," he says, vaguely surprised.

Cas laughs while he turns properly into his seat and closes the door.

They drive back to the motel in silence. Dean can still feel the irrational anger crawling under his skin, but it's fading along with the adrenaline. He's always pissed when Sam gets hurt, too, or when Sam ends up with the dangerous end of the stick even when Dean had tried to appoint tasks out so that he got all the dangerous shit himself. He has to specifically and explicitly tell himself that Sam is an adult who can take care of himself, because if he lets that slip for half a second, he forgets. And clearly he's gonna have to do the same with Cas, now. It's like a meditation, one of those self-help mantras. _Don't freak out – they're not made of glass._

But it still twists him all up inside to see Cas sitting there with a faint grimace, breath hitching every time they hit a bump or a pothole. He's probably right, his leg is probably fine, but Dean knows it hurts anyway. And pain is pain, even when the wound is minor.

The parking lot is blessedly empty of other people when they arrive at the motel. Dean doesn't have the energy to invent some reason why he's covered in blood, helping along a limping man covered in dirt and smudged with soot. They slip inside their room and Dean pulls the chain and flips the deadbolt.

While Cas limps into the bathroom and clicks on the light, Dean fetches the first aid stuff and strips out of his shredded shirt. The cold of the nighttime is starting to get to him again, sweat chilling on his aching skin, salt trickles and gooseflesh crawling up his arms and down his spine. He shakes it off, goes up to the mirror and sink outside the bathroom door to examine the wound. Two gashes on his upper arm, a scratch on his torso that didn't even break skin. He runs cold water, wets a cloth.

The shower hisses to life. Cas opens the bathroom door again, stripped to his underwear. He watches Dean clean the cuts for a minute, then says, “You're cold.”

Dean glances over. “'Mfine.”

“Get in the shower.”

Dean sighs, drops the bloody washcloth in the sink, doesn't argue.

It's a tiny bathroom, barely big enough for them both to stand inside the door, and the shower definitely can't fit two. It doesn't stop Cas. He steps close to Dean, almost chest to chest, and unbuttons Dean's jeans, breath hot on Dean's jaw. Dean can't help but hold onto Cas' waist, rubbing firm arcs into the muscles of his lower back, thumbing over the soft skin of his sides.

“Step,” Cas orders, maneuvering Dean's clothes off in the small space. Dean obliges, half expects to be kissed, but Cas keeps his eyes on Dean's chest and his sluggishly bleeding cuts. Cas puts Dean under the water, hurt side away from the spray so it isn't hit directly, and picks up a clean hand towel.

It's a weird mix of conflicting physical sensations, Dean thinks: the blissfully hot water sluicing over his neck and back on one side, heat seeping under his skin and sending rolling shocks of pleasure out to the end of every nerve as his muscles warm and relax, while on the other side Cas washes out his fresh wounds with competence if not gentleness. Cas is probably being as gentle as he can, Dean thinks; he's still a soldier, and his touch is never entirely soft. The thought sends a shiver down Dean's spine that's unrelated to temperature.

Cas finishes, ushers Dean out of the shower and hands him a big fluffy towel while stepping perfunctorily out of his own underwear and under the water. Dean dries off, wadding the terrycloth over the cuts to catch the last trickles of red. They're already almost closed. He gets the antibiotic ointment out of the kit, sits on the closed toilet.

Within a minute, Cas is out of the shower. In the sudden silence when the water shuts off, Dean looks up and meets Cas' eyes. Cas stops, stills, watching Dean back.

Dean looks down Cas' body, taking his time. The warding tattoo in the dip between stomach and hipbone is less stark now, fully healed and sinking into Cas' skin like it's always been there. Dean thinks idly about putting the anti-demon possession tattoo over Cas' heart himself, and it makes his mouth twitch with a smile. He roams down, past black curls and the dick that is clearly starting to be interested in the proceedings, to the healing naiad bite on the top of Cas' thigh. Dean reaches out, touches it lightly, and Cas moves half a step closer, turning a fraction so Dean can see.

Dean smooths a thumb over the skin, checks the injury closely. “Scab tore,” he says. “It's already closed again.”

Cas nods.

“Looks good,” Dean says. “Won't even scar much.”

Cas reaches out, touches Dean's temples. Dean closes his eyes. After a moment of standing there in silence, Cas shifts again, kneels down and takes the antibiotic from Dean's hand.

Cas deals with his cuts carefully, routinely. Antibiotic, butterfly bandage, antibiotic, butterfly. It occurs to Dean that he has spent time looking up first aid and studying just so he can do this, now that he can't simply touch the skin and will it to be whole.

He knows Dean is always going to put himself out there, always going to get hurt, always going to keep fighting. He knows it and he's already readying himself to be there for Dean when he comes away from a fight reeling and bloody. He knows it, because he's going to be right there in the fight with him. No matter what he has to learn or how he has to change and adapt to be able to do it, Cas will never stop Dean, but he'll also never let Dean go into danger alone.

It all clicks so perfect it aches, right down to Dean's toes it _aches,_ just like the hot water sending sparks into every nerve. He reaches out and touches Cas' hair, runs his fingers through it. “I love you,” he whispers.

He hasn't said it out loud before. Dean feels Cas jerk slightly under his touch, sees his eyes widen a fraction, but he continues administering to Dean's injuries until the task is done. He stands, carefully puts the first aid things back in their box. Slowly, Dean stands, too, and reaches out. He's starting to worry he shouldn't have...

Cas turns into his arms and kisses him with such ferocity Dean can only suck in a breath and relent against the onslaught. His back hits the tiled bathroom wall, warm and dripping with condensed steam. He returns in kind, barely remembering to breathe as he bites at Cas' lip and explores the already-familiar mouth.

Cas moans quietly, tugging at Dean's hips. Dean catches his hands and pulls them up, tangling fingers. “Bed,” Dean mutters. He isn't doing this life-affirming sex thing against a slippery tiled wall, okay? There's spontaneous and there's stupid. Cas seems to get it, laughs against his lips. Dean grins and kisses him once more.

Cas clicks off the bathroom lights as they pass, pulling Dean by the hand to the bed they'd claimed last night. Dean feels slightly guilty about Sam running away to a completely different motel just to get away from them – but then again, not really. Sam can just frigging deal with it. Dean pushes all other thoughts out of his mind as Cas climbs into bed and tugs Dean down with him.

It's dark, so dark Cas is hardly more than a big warm shadow. Dean has never given much thought to light level during sex. Lights on? Yes, all for it, he loves looking while he's touching. Dim – sure, it's sexy for a reason, everything turns into a dreamy blur. Pitch black... harder to maneuver, maybe, but there's something pretty great about doing the whole thing by feel, a level of connection unrelated to the soul-gazey thing Dean was never much into before he started sleeping with Cas. Cas likes eye contact, which took Dean some getting used to, but he gets now that it's how Cas reads him to see if he's into something or not. It's habit to Cas, like the old days where he might look into Dean's eyes to skim the top of his thoughts to look for anything that stood out strongly: pain, pleasure, sorrow, happiness.

Cas still reads Dean's mind, more than Dean cares to admit. But he hasn't ever been completely comfortable with reading Dean's body. Dean's had to introduce him to his own body, too (Cas' first introduction to his prostate had been pretty spectacular, for example). But it's so dark in here now that eye contact isn't possible, and Dean half wonders if he should lean over and turn the lamp on just because.

When he moves his arm out towards the table, Cas grabs his hand and drags it back, placing Dean's palm on his cheek. “This is fine,” Cas whispers.

Dean closes his eyes. He finds Cas' mouth again easily, settles over him in a familiar sprawl, thigh between Cas' legs, his own cock fitting snugly against Cas' hip. He rocks for a while, kissing Cas' face and jaw and neck in the dark, carding fingers through his hair, listening to his breathing become shallower and quicker as he hardens and ruts up against Dean.

Cas slides his hand down Dean's torso to his dick and strokes, firm not teasing, and Dean bucks. “Yeah,” Dean breathes. “Yeah, baby, what do you want?”

Dean always asks. Lately, sometimes, Cas has taken to asking, too, or making requests. It'd be easy enough to go ahead and rub one out, or slide down Cas' torso without a word and blow him until he begs to finish, but Dean likes the collaboration. He's had partners where he would just go for whatever he felt like, but this thing with Cas, it's different. He asks.

Cas is quiet for a considering moment. Then he says, “I'm thinking of a number.”

Dean laughs, almost too loud for the moment, the sound a sharp crack in the darkness. He sits up, slaps Cas' shin. “You're terrible,” he says fondly.

“Blow me, Dean,” says Cas, and Dean can hear the smile in his voice.

“Quid pro quo.” Dean shifts, turns around, manhandles Cas into position by feel since he can't see where he's going. He settles for lying side by side, since neither his arm nor Cas' leg could deal with having to hold themselves up. He runs his hands over the backs of Cas' calves, settling into the hollows behind his knees.

Cas twitches. “Tickling is not the goal,” he says, hands roaming over Dean's torso, finding his waist and hips and a good angle. Dean can feel him shift up onto one elbow. Hot breath touches the top of Dean's thigh, followed by an even hotter tongue, licking and nipping.

Dean sucks in a breath. “Says you,” he mutters, but he keeps his touches firm enough not to tickle and nuzzles his nose into Cas' stomach, teasing into his bellybutton with his tongue, palming Cas' cock.

As soon as Cas closes his lips over the head of Dean's length, Dean returns the favor. Dean finds that lack of sight makes this position easier to coordinate; he closes his eyes and focuses on maintaining the balance of concentration on Cas' pleasure with the distraction of his own. And Cas does everything he can to drive Dean to distraction. It would almost be competitive, this push-pull, this constant oneupmanship, but it works: the tight, hot well of Cas' mouth lights a fire in Dean, makes him ache for something more, and the only outlet for his desperation is the cock in his mouth and he pours every ounce of need back into the art of sucking Cas off. He finds himself remembering why he loves this position and wondering why they don't do it more often, until Cas' hands roam around the back of his ass, kneading and pulling him closer and slipping fingers between his cheeks to spread and tug, and he remembers, _oh, that's why._

Cas pulls off for a breath, gently blows cool air over Dean's saliva-wet dick, and Dean twitches hard enough for Cas to slip out of his mouth. He finger-combs through the tight thatch of dark curls, holding Cas' dick flush to his stomach to get at his balls, mouthing over them and sucking in one, tonguing firmly. Cas makes a pained sound and swallows Dean down again, shockingly hot after cool air.

Dean's every nerve ending is on fire, coursing with sustained, delicious pleasure. Heat blooms out from his spine, gathering like a taught muscle, ready to spring. Orgasm is still a ways off but he almost loves this more: the coasting, like flying, like catching a warm updraft and spiraling lazily up to dizzying heights. The hairs on his arms are standing on end, it's so good, so all-encompassing; even his scalp tingles with pleasure.

Cas lets him go again, wrapping a hand around him immediately and stroking firm but slow, keeping the pace. He makes a desperate little sound, pulls himself further up and manhandles Dean's hips – Dean wonders what he's – oh, but, oh. _Oh._

Hot tongue flicks over his hole, spreads and licks wide wet stripes, pushes at the muscle and catches on the rim. Dean keeps going on Cas for another moment but his concentration is officially broken; he pulls off and turns his face into the inside of his forearm with a helpless moan, canting his hips and pulling one leg up so that Cas has all the access he wants. Cas nips at the sensitive skin between his cheeks and pinches big folds of his ass, teasing the abused patches of skin with soothing fingers and scraping teeth. Dean's breath picks up. He wonders if he could come untouched. He never has, but he feels like Cas is the hypnotist who could make him do it. The knot of pleasure up his spine and the tightness in his balls is already pretty damn close to the edge.

The more Cas teases with his tongue, though, the less fulfilled Dean feels. When Cas breaches him with the tip of his tongue, but only momentarily, Dean makes a frustrated sound, almost begging, moving his leg up over Cas' side to pull him closer and demand that he do it again.

“Objection?” Cas asks, voice rough. 

Dean moans nonverbal complaint.

A wet sound means Cas just sucked on his fingers because a moment later one pushes into Dean without warning. It's not nearly enough; Dean arches into it, the knot of heat in his belly arcs and snaps along his limbs like solar flares.

“I'm sorry, what was that?”

Fucking _asshole._ Dean mutters, “Don't talk with your mouth full.”

Cas removes his finger, drags it over Dean's hole. Dean groans. “Please specify,” Cas murmurs, “whether you want to come on my tongue or my cock.”

“Those my only options?” Dean says into his forearm, but he can't help grinning.

Cas shifts his hips by Dean's face, bumping his erection into Dean's chin. “Well, you're not offering any others,” he says. And then, because he's a bastard, he licks over Dean's ass again, burying his face deep and putting an admirable degree of enthusiasm into tongue-fucking Dean's hole.

Dean cries out, writhing against the mattress, and gasps, “Fuck, fuck, Cas, in me, fuck me, now.”

Cas pulls back with a last lick and a satisfied sound. “As I suspected,” he says.

“Fuckin,” Dean pants, “smug piece of _shit,_ I don't know why I put up with you.” He struggles up, flops over the side of the bed to reach for his bag. He doesn't need light to know where he puts his stuff, it's such habit; one flailing grope and he's found the pocket with the lube in it. Which, in his defense, he has always kept in his go bag... although he has gone through about three times as much since hooking up with Cas as he would've if he were still going solo most nights.

Cas sits up, turns around and swings one leg over Dean's. He feels out for his hands, takes the lube from him, and Dean hears the cap pop. “Because you love me,” Cas says. Dean gasps a laugh because his fingers are back at Dean's ass and they're _dripping,_ sopping wet – clearly in the dark he'd squeezed out too much – but at the feel of three fingers with no buildup, Dean's laughter catches in his throat and he pants noisily.

“Yeah, I'm good, I'm way past good,” Dean gasps, as Cas tries to be patient and fails miserably. Dean reaches down, swipes up excess lube from where Cas is still finger-fucking him, and immediately fists Cas' cock with it. “What are you waiting for, a written invitation?”

Cas bucks into Dean's hand with a barely-restrained cry. He pushes Dean's thighs further apart, drags at his hips and lines up by feel in the dark. He folds himself over Dean and tries to kiss him while pushing in, catching his chin first in the dark, then cheek, then lips.

Dean can't kiss back properly, though, too busy feeling like he's going to fly apart from the stretch and friction and sheer _yesyesyesyes,_ and Cas just pants open-mouthed against Dean's jaw until he bottoms out. Cas whimpers slightly.

“Objection?” Dean manages, voice thin.

Cas snaps his hips slightly, like he's trying to push in impossibly further. “Tight,” he says.

Dean puffs out an amused breath. “Go for it.”

Immediately, Cas pulls back and drives back in. Dean cries out full-voiced, hand flying behind his head to brace against the flimsy motel headboard, and he feels fleetingly sorry for whoever's in the room next door, but not _that_ sorry. He's so close he might really come just like this, the stretched-out burn adding to the fire that was already stoked so damn high and hot and god if Cas would just get the angle right and fucking nail it -

Cas shifts and prostate stimulation joins the party and Dean all but sobs because he's so close he could cry. It ain't gonna happen like this, he decides, but one touch and he'll be gone, and the intensity of this feeling is almost more exhausting than a hunt, it's so good it's _absurd,_ he both loves and hates coasting here because he's _so_ close it almost _hurts,_ he's _so fucking almost, fuck, god, Cas, please_

He doesn't realize he's started babbling some of this out loud until Cas silences him with lips and tongue, reaches between them for Dean's dick, and with one solid stroke Dean is shouting into Cas' insistent mouth and coming like a freight train. A solar flare snaps out so big and hot it consumes him completely. He hooks his ankles around the small of Cas' back and clings for dear life as he rides it out, spasming through every muscle, singing through every nerve.

Orgasm fades but the glow is a strong one; Cas still inside him feels so good, little rippling bolts of aftershocks. When Cas slows and makes as if to pull out, Dean shakes his head and grips the back of Cas' neck with one hand, his thigh with the other.

“Dean,” Cas whispers, strained.

“Let it out,” Dean croaks.

Cas snaps back into movement and Dean's finally released enough from the haze of his own desperation to sense the same thing in Cas. He cants his hips accomodatingly, burying his hand in Cas' hair while Cas makes small, crazed noises into his neck. He feels the tension in Cas' back half a second before he cries out, knee slipping out of place, shoving hard into Dean, deep, deep, coming hot and frantic, and Dean's pretty sure it's gotta be at least as good as Dean's was.

Dean pants down from the high of truly excellent sex, sucking in deep gulps of air, just now beginning to feel oversensitized and achy. He presses his face into Cas' damp hair, never dried after his quick shower. He breathes in the smell of cheap motel shampoo and the clinging hint of smoke. Cas rocks gently into him, a few stilted final strokes, drawing out everything so far, so tight, so thin, the last remaining string of fading pleasure reverberating even after the finale's peaked.

With a shuddering inhale, Cas finally slips out, massaging the meat of Dean's thigh as if in apology. Dean strokes his hair, draws it back tight and high from his flushed forehead and lets it flop down again. He kisses Cas' temple. “So good,” he breathes. “'S so good.” Sometimes Cas needs reassurance, praise. “Love you,” Dean adds, because it's still novel to him to say it out loud.

Cas raises his lips to Dean's, catches him into stillness with a kiss that's so sweet and lingering and full of cherishing and worship that Dean can almost forget he just got fucked into the mattress. Cas kisses him chaste and long, thumb on his cheek, so lost in the silent communication that Dean loses himself, too, just to follow him.

At great length, Cas pulls back, leans his head down to kiss Dean's shoulder. “I love you,” he says, a solemn whisper.

Dean nods in the darkness, eyes closed. Cas eases off to the side, away from Dean's injured arm, and abruptly hisses. He slides down too quick with a whispered “ow.” Dean opens his eyes. “Did you pull something?” he asks, grinning.

Cas mutters unintelligibly. Dean catches hints of profanity the angel could only have picked up from him over the years. Dean laughs quietly. “Shut up,” Cas grumbles, settling in against Dean's side, face in his clavicle, arm thrown over his chest.

After a couple of minutes, Dean murmurs, “Sticky.”

Cas snorts.

“Be right back,” Dean apologizes, and slides out from Cas' hold. His eyes have adjusted to the dark enough that he can navigate to the bathroom without a light. He splashes his face, pours a glass of water, wets a washcloth and cleans himself off. He rinses the cloth, wrings it, and takes it and the water back to the bed. He bumps into Cas unexpectedly; the water sloshes but doesn't spill. “Hey,” he mutters.

Cas is sitting on the edge of the bed. Wavering, he touches Dean's arm for balance as he stands. “Stealing the other bed,” Cas explains. “I was in the wet spot.”

Dean snickers. Cas is so spoiled by their bunker arrangement, it probably has Sam in tears every time he sees the laundry room.

“Here,” he says, finding Cas' hand and wrapping his fingers around the water glass. Cas drinks gratefully, clicks the glass down and pulls back the covers on the other bed. Dean climbs in with him.

Cas tugs Dean close tightly, presses into his side, clutches his waist. “Stay,” he orders.

Dean grins. “Yessir.”

Cas noses at his shoulder, squashing his face into Dean's skin. “Mm,” he says. “This kind of thing is not a good reason to get hurt on hunts,” he says.

“Nope,” Dean agrees.

But his arm doesn't hurt at all as he drifts off to sleep.

-

It's three weeks before they get back to the bunker.

First, after Cas had tried to clean up some of the bloodstains from the motel bathroom and Dean had checked them out and Sam had waited impatiently to be picked up from a downtown inn, they'd piled into the car with a collective air of relief at a job completed and idled in a gas station parking lot for a few silent minutes.

“Home?” Dean had finally asked.

“You know,” Sam had said, “we're really close to Carlsbad. Have you seen the caverns, Cas?”

Cas had grinned faintly. “I knew the angel who shaped them,” he'd said. “Amabael. She was meant to serve the patron of winter, but she was always underground, sculpting.”

After Carlsbad, Dean threatened to take them to Roswell to see all the alien kitsch, but Sam suggested that they skirt the border and eventually the coast on an impromptu roadtrip to New Orleans. Kevin hadn't minded more time to himself. If anything, when Sam had called him to apologize for ditching him, he'd sounded more awake and cheerful than he had for months. A quiet place that was actually _safe_ was doing him a world of good.

Autumn drew inexorably on, a crisp undercurrent to the muggy steam of the south-southeast, and they kept their windows rolled down and their sunglasses on and turned the music up loud enough to be heard over the whistle of wind and rumble of tires on asphalt. Cas took a share of the driving. Some nights they hit townships and found rooms (Sam refused to settle for sharing a double again, since they were decidedly not on the job and he didn't trust Dean as far as he could throw him), but some nights they either pushed on through, taking shifts at the wheel and napping in the back, or else they stopped in truck stops or on the side of the road and Sam would stretch out across the front bench seat while Dean and Cas crammed themselves into the back. They at least had the decency to keep their hands to themselves then.

Cas was strangely fond of doing laundry in laundromats, proud of the fact that he already knew how to do one random human task. He learned endlessly as they traveled: little things, conveniences, entertainments, but throughout it all it seemed to Sam that he became more human by the minute. Dean taught him how to fill up the gas tank, pass on a two-lane, throw darts, shoot pool, and order a round at a dive bar. Sam taught him how to shuffle cards, how to cut and deal, how to play legit and how to cheat with a little prestidigitation. Cas mastered sleight of hand alarmingly quickly. He pointed out that Sam never saw where he kept his angel blade. Sam wasn't entirely sure if it was meant to be a joke.

They sprawled out on the grass a few hours outside San Antonio at two in the morning and Sam pointed out constellations. Cas smiled and named the angels who had made the stars.

In Port Lavaca, they found a ghost. More sad than angry, poor thing, a young man who'd drowned off the docks; but he'd started pulling dockworkers under just to have some company, so it was well past time to send him on his way. When the spirit pulled Cas in the water they'd all had a brief moment of terror before Sam torched the old length of rope the sailor had once bled on. More than a minute later Cas erupted, gasping, from the mirror-still water, and Dean proceeded to go blue in the face yelling at him to not scare them like that. Sam had shaken his head and made triply sure to be in a hotel room as far away from Dean and Cas as humanly possible that night.

The ten days they spent in New Orleans itself was a blur of food and laughter and color. Alcohol, too, though not to Dean's usual standards of shit-faced-ness. They discovered that while Cas wasn't exactly a lightweight, his previous, still-angelic experience with alcohol had made him severely overestimate how much he could handle as a mere mortal. By halfway through Cas' third hurricane, Dean could barely breathe for how hard he was laughing at the ex-angel's drunken ranting. Cas was a talkative, aloof drunk who tried to explain the finer points of metaphysics while yelling at people to stop interrupting him, and he was a surly monster when hungover. Sam assurred him that these were important things to discover about oneself (but only while he was too busy puking to fight back).

They drove north over Lake Pontchartrain at sunset, and the water was a sea of fire. All of them thought about hell. About the fact that they'd all escaped it at one point or another.

They hadn't stopped much after that, but they'd driven slowly through the Ozarks in Arkansas, switching drivers in tiny scenic overview parking lots on the tops of mountains. Cas would take off his sunglasses, push his hair back, and look out over the world, or at least the tiny patch of it that could be seen from three thousand feet. Sam and Dean left him alone.

Almost home, just outside Kansas City, Cas finally asked for a haircut. Dean had started calling him a rejected Game of Thrones extra by then. Sam laughed, but he ended up being the one holding the scissors in a motel bathroom. It was the old Winchester Special: neither of them had ever bothered to get professional haircuts, and were so used to trimming their own and each other's hair that they figured a barber couldn't do much better, so why waste the money? Cas didn't particularly care about his appearance, anyway, and only wanted his hair to stop falling in his eyes. Sam took a lot off, but left more length than he'd ever had before he lost his grace. Afterwards, Cas looked at himself in the mirror and smiled as if he was finally starting to like who he saw there. Dean ruffled his shorter hair.

Three weeks after they'd left the bunker, four weeks after Cas' adventure with the biting naiad, they'd arrived home again, with only scars to show for their wounds.

-

"Where are they?" Sam asks Kevin, late one afternoon. He's been all up and down the bunker's corridors, checked outside, knocked and then (carefully) peeked into both Cas and Deans' rooms, but he can't find hide nor hair of them. Kevin's sprawled out on one of the sofas along the side walls of the library, reading (as usual). Sam stops and blinks at his book, a Stephen king novel. "Fiction?" he adds. _"Horror_ fiction?"

Kevin glances up, sticking his finger in his book. "When you've been in the real thing, King is a joke," Kevin says. "But he's still a good storyteller."

Sam shrugs. "True. Taking a break?"

Kevin fidgets. "I guess I'm realizing I can't do the prophet thing 24-7," he says. "That there really isn't any chance of getting to the end of this thing and being able to quit and go home." He stares at his book.

Sam sighs and walks over to sit by Kevins feet. He balances the big, heavy package he's holding across his knees. "Maybe you can't go back to how your life was before you got sucked into ours," he says, "but I promise you, Kev, we're gonna figure out what to do about Metatron and the fallen angels, and then at least you can live without being chased all the time. You can, you know, buy a house, have a dog." Sam gestures vaguely upward. "Go back to school. Not live underground."

Kevin snorts and reopens his book, holding it up over his face. Sam thinks he's trying to hide a small smile. "I dunno," Kevin says. "The library here is pretty great and the company's not total shit."

Sam shoves his feet and Kevin kicks out at him. "Have you seen Dean?" Sam asks again.

Kevin rolls his eyes. "I think they're still out there having wild monkey sex on all the cars or whatever."

"Still?" Sam stands with a groan. "Christ, he hasn't picked a car yet?"

"Your brother is not like us earth humans," Kevin says. "Weird car fetishist."

Sam shakes his head and heads out to the garage.

He'd thought for sure they finished this hours ago. Dean had sworn that Cas would have his own ideal vehicle by the end of the day or Dean's name wasn't Winchester, and Cas had seemed bemused but too soppily fond of Dean to object. Sam assumes Cas has been test driving all day and is probably sick to death of all things automotive.

Sam hefts the package under his arm and pushes open the door to the garage with his foot, hopping for balance.

Dean and Cas are not, thankfully, having wild monkey sex on all the cars, although Sam would not necessarily put it past them and is personally terrified of ever looking at the Impala under a black light. They are, however, arguing.

"I don't need a vehicle that large," Cas is saying.

Dean ticks off points on his fingers. "Rules of hunting: big enough to hide an arsenal, big enough to hold one body at minimum, classic is cool but not so vintage that it's a theft risk -"

"So you don't follow your own rules," Sam interrupts, walking towards them.

"Sam!" Dean says. "Yea or nay?" He points to the car he's leaning on, and Sam notices it for the first time. It's an old Lincoln Continental, rust-stained and dented, but probably gold or tan underneath.

"A pimpmobile?" Sam asks, grinning.

Cas says, "It's a tank." He frowns at it. "It already feels cumbersome enough to need a vehicle to replace the purpose of my wings. I don't want quite so _much_ vehicle."

"You have slept in the backseat of the Impala," Dean says. "Tell me that backseat wouldn't be more comfortable." He points inside. The backseat is pretty much the size of a large sofa.

"In fairness, the backseat of the Impala is a lot more comfortable when you're not both crammed in there suffocating each other," Sam says.

Dean flips him off.

Cas wavers. "I understand your points," he says, "but I just..."

"What's the alternative?" Sam asks quickly.

Dean purses his lips and points a few yards behind Cas.

It's a gorgeous old Harley, dust still settling on its flanks from a test run outside. Sam whistles, walking around it. "Repairs?" he says.

"Doesn't need any," Dean says grudgingly. "Somebody really loved her."

Sam looks up at Cas, who flushes and looks down. "Flashy," Sam says, grinning.

Cas snuffles his feet. "Fast," he mutters.

"So it turns out Cas is a speed demon," Dean says.

"A real hell's angel?" Sam snickers.

"I assume you're making some kind of reference," Cas says, glaring, "and I disapprove of whatever it is."

Sam laughs. He walks back over. "I like it," he says, "but Dean's kinda right. For work, you need the full deal – big trunk or a truck bed or a trailer, you know, anything you can cram a lot of shady stuff into without looking too suspicious. And don't get pulled over for speeding, man. Cop stops to give you a ticket, takes one look in the back..." Sam shakes his head. "End up on some serial killer most wanted list faster than you can blink."

Cas sighs.

"But I don't see any reason you can't have both," Sam says. He furrows his brow at Dean. "It's not like you have to drop a few grand on either one."

Cas perks up again. Dean rolls his eyes. "You enabler." He turns to Cas. "Look, if I work on fixing up the Lincoln, will you help?"

"Of course," Cas says, looking affronted that there would be any doubt.

"Cool," Dean says. "And you can do your whole Mad Max road warrior thing to go get groceries or whatever."

"You know," Sam says thoughtfully, "it could be really useful to have someone who could get to a job first, case it out and wait for the cavalry. Or be professional backup – moves fast, uses whatever arsenal's on hand... 'has encyclopedic knowledge of all supernatural creatures, speaks all languages living and dead, will travel'?"

"Enabler," Dean repeats sharply, but he looks grudgingly intrigued.

Cas has brightened considerably. "I like that idea," he says.

Dean sighs. He points at the package under Sam's arm to change the subject. "Sam, are you a Fed Ex guy or d'you just play one on TV?"

"Right," Sam says, shifting the package into both hands. He holds it up in front of Cas. "Happy birthday."

Cas stares. "Excuse me?"

Dean says, “Are we doing this now?”

Sam shrugs. “The rest are in the kitchen.”

Cas opens his mouth and Dean puts a hand over it. Cas furrows his brow and tilts his head at Dean from behind the covering hand. Dean grins, reaches into his back pocket and fishes something out. He pulls out one of Cas' hands, opens it, presses the small something into it, and curls the fingers back up. “Sweet sixteen billionth,” he says.

Cas opens and closes his mouth a couple of times. “I don't have a birthday,” he says. “I wasn't born.”

Sam shrugs. “We got you presents.”

“There's pie,” Dean adds.

Cas stares at them.

“Look,” Sam says, relenting, “it was total coincidence that we came up with some gift ideas, and we just figured we might as well give them to you at once and make a day of it.”

“I mean, you don't have to have a birthday,” Dean says, “but you can if you want.”

Cas looks quite stunned. “Is there...” he says, a little hoarse, and clears his throat. “Is there some significance to this day?”

“Uh,” Sam says, laughing sheepishly. “Not really. This is from Charlie.” He hefts the box. “We were just waiting for it to show up.”

“Oh,” Cas says, eyes finally falling on the box. “What is it?”

“Kitchen,” Dean says firmly, taking his arm. “Pie, presents, birthday spanking.”

“There will be no spanking of any kind in the kitchen,” Sam says with alarm.

“Uh-huh,” Dean says breezily, passing him and dragging Cas along.

The pie, of course, is not really for Cas at all (he'd once tentatively said he preferred cake and Dean hadn't spoken to him for the rest of the day), but Dean will take any excuse. It's a frozen apple pie from the store and it'll take nearly an hour to bake, anyway. Dean dives straight into the task of decanting the pie and preheating the oven while Sam points Cas over to the table, where three more packages await: a large white box, a crinkled manila envelope, and a long, misshapen thing badly wrapped in newspaper held on with rubber bands. “Uh,” says Sam. “I wrapped. Sorry.”

Cas walks over to the table slowly, looking lost. “I still don't...” he says. “I... why?”

Sam pulls out a chair for him, then one for himself. “Because we wanted to,” he says. “Because you do random nice things for family.”

Cas sits down a little too heavily. Sam places the box he's been carrying around onto the table and pushes it over. “That first,” Sam says.

Dazedly, Cas reaches out for the box. As he holds out his hand, he nearly drops something and catches it just in time. He holds it up – the thing Dean had pressed into his palm, which he hadn't looked at yet.

“What is this?” he asks, holding it up to the light. Well, it's obvious what it is: a ring. One of Dean's silver rings, which he hasn't worn in a long time. Sam frowns at it. Even he doesn't know what that's about.

Dean slides the pie into the oven and comes over to the table, flopping down in the chair next to Cas. He nods at the boxes on the table. “Do the rest first.”

Cas looks at him suspiciously, then hesitantly puts the ring down on the tabletop and pulls over the box from Charlie.

Dean has to go hunt down a knife with which to cut the tape, and then there's a bunch of packing peanuts flying around like clinging white insects, but finally Cas gets to the core of the package and pulls out a boxed-up, brand new laptop, and various accoutrements like a shoulder bag, nice speakers, some nerdy stick-on decals. Cas blinks at the whole array.

“Comes with one condition,” Sam says. “Neither of you ever uses my computer again. And you have to call Charlie yourself when you need the thing fixed because Dean got it infected with a million porn viruses.”

Dean laughs, rocking back on his chair legs, and even Cas has to hide a grin. “Fine,” he says.

Cas pulls over the long, odd, newspaper-wrapped object. Sam scratches the back of his neck, flushing. “Okay, so,” he says, “I can explain.”

Cas tears off the newspaper to reveal the old cane he'd swiped from the archives and taken to Hobbs last month. He picks it up and frowns.

“It's -” Sam begins, but Cas grips the handle and sheath and pulls it apart.

His angel blade is housed in the handle end, sharp enough to cut the air itself, gleaming as chrome-bright as the day it was forged even though it's never been cleaned. It fits perfectly. “It was too heavy,” Cas murmurs. “How -?”

“I refitted the inside of the handle,” Sam says. “But you can take the blade back out. It was kind of a joke that went too far.” He shrugs apologetically. “You can't just manifest the thing out of your sleeve anymore, so I thought that was as good a place as any to hide it.”

Cas smiles, resheathes the blade and says, “Thank you, Sam.”

Dean jumps in, leans over to drag the plain white box closer. “Mine,” he says.

“Hang on,” Sam says, picking up the envelope and thumping it on top of the box. “Kevin's.”

Cas blinks, opens the flap of the envelope and pulls out the ream of papers inside. They're covered with Kevin's loopy scrawl and about a million indecipherable symbols.

“Angel tablet,” Sam says. “All he's got of it so far, mostly in dead languages no one else can read. Metatron's spell included. First crack at it goes to you.”

Cas grips the papers too tight, crumples the edges of a few sheets. He takes a deep breath and forces his hands to relax. He puts the papers down, spreads them flat, and clears his throat. He opens his mouth, staring at the top page, but comes up with nothing to say. He shakes his head, eyes bright.

“Now Dean's,” Sam says, gently pulling the papers out from under Cas' hands.

Cas brushes a hand over his forehead before he carefully lifts the top off of the flimsy cardboard box. Inside is a wad of tan fabric.

“You didn't have a coat,” Dean says. “And it'll be winter soon.”

Slowly Cas lifts it out. It's not an overcoat, it's a short trench, and it's a heavy wool instead of cotton, but it's nearly the same color and it's double-breasted. Cas stares at it for a long time, not speaking. Dean leans his chin on his fist, apparently content to wait Cas out. Sam shifts in his seat and coughs lightly into his fist.

Cas folds the coat onto the table in front of him, picks up the silver ring and turns it between his fingers. Finally, he looks over at Dean with an unspoken question.

Dean clears his throat, putting his hands down and twisting them together. “If you keep telling people we're married as a cover story, they're gonna wonder why you don't have one.”

Cas bites the inside of his cheek, then says, “Cover story.”

Sam's mouth falls open. “Whoa, wait,” he says, and is ignored.

Dean smirks at Cas, folds his forearms on the table.

“Aren't we both supposed to have one?” Cas asks, hoarse.

Dean shrugs. “Up to you.”

“What,” says Sam.

Cas swallows, turns the ring again. With a sudden, stilted movement, he pushes it onto his ring finger. It's a little loose, but he keeps fiddling with it.

Sam sits there dumbfounded. “Uh,” he says, raising a hand. “Did you just get fake married?”

Dean grins.

“Dude,” Sam says.

“You're the maid of honor,” Dean says. “Charlie's my best man.”

Sam mouths. “Cas -?” He turns his floored bewilderment onto Cas.

“Excuse me, Sam,” Cas says simply, and turns and grabs Dean by the collar and kisses him so hard Sam can hear teeth clack from the other side of the table. Dean rolls with it with gusto, and Sam immediately tilts his head back to look at the ceiling.

“Yep,” Sam mutters. “I signed up for this.”

-

**Author's Note:**

> Mild TW emetophobia (just injury-related nausea), blood (cuts, field surgery).


End file.
